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THE 


Sovereigns of Judah. 


A SERIES OF SERMONS 


BY 

K 

ROBERT A. HALLAM, D.D. 

II 


Late Rector of St. James’ Church, 

New London, Conn., 

And author of Lectures on Morning Prayer, Lectures on Moses, &c., &c. 



NE Y YORK : 

E. p. dutJon & 

713 Broadway. 



CO. 



« 


Copyright, 

} 

1877, 

By E. P. Dutton & Co. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE. 

I. 

Antecedents i 

II. 

Saul 14 

III. 

David 28 

IV. 

Solomon 42 

V. 

Rehoboam 56 

VI. 

Abijah 70 

VII. 

Asa 82 

VIII. 

Jehoshaphat 95 

IX. 

Jehoram 107 

X. 

Ahaziah 1 18 

XI. 

Athaliah 131 


iv 

CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

XII. 

Jo ASH 



XIII. 

Amaziah 


UZZIAH 

XIV. 


XV. 

JOTHAM 



XVI. 

Ahaz 



XVII. 

Hezekiah 



xviii. 

Manasseh 

215 


XIX. 

Amon 


JOSIAH 

XX. 

Jehoahaz 

XXL 

Jehoiakim 

XXII. 

CONIAH 

XXIII. 


XXIV. 

Zedekiah 



Sovereigns of Judah. 


I. 

ANTECEDENTS. 


Thou shall in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy 
God shall choose : one from among thy brethren shall thou set king 
over thee ; thou mayest not set a sti'anger over thee, which is not thy 
brother. — D eut. xvn : 15. 

To Him who declares the end from the beginning 
nothing is contingent or unforeseen. He can never 
find cause to devise an expedient for an occasion 
after it has arisen, because the occasion and the ex- 
pedient were always knov n, and the treatment of 
them planned in the recesses of His infinite mind. 
His acts and procedures in the affairs of men have 
their roots far back in that wisdom which was “ set 
up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ere the 
earth was.” “ Known unto God are all his works 
from the beginning of the world.” The verbal out- 
coming of his eternal purposes by the ministry of 
men is prophecy, which is naught else but the in- 
spired declaration of such of God’s eternal pur- 
poses as he chooses to disclose to mortals by the 
agency of one of their number, selected and quali- 
1 


2 


SOVEREIGNS OE JUDAH. 


fied for that office. Moses was eminently a prophet 
of God ; and in the passage which contains our text 
he prophesies a momentous change in the civil pol- 
ity of his people, by which their government should 
be transformed from a simple theocracy into a mon- 
archy ; theocratic still in its inner spirit and meaning, 
but in its outward form a monarchy, like that of 
other nations. They were, in time, to have a king, 
and to be reckoned a kingdom among the kingdoms 
of the earth. They would, sooner or later, have a 
craving for a monarchial establishment, and their 
craving would be gratified ; and yet, as the craving 
was sinful, and arose out of worldliness and unbe- 
lief and the decay of religious principle, the gratifi- 
cation of their wish should be its punishment, while 
yet it should be, on the whole, salutary for them, 
being such as they were. Moses might have seen 
this change by his natural sagacity, for it was the 
proper result of causes, which, even in his day, were 
visibly at work. But he was comrnissioned to pro- 
claim it as the messenger of God also, who foresaw 
their weakness and prescribed for it in anger indeed ; 
and yet, in his displeasure, he remembered mercy, 
and would bring out of evil a specific and important 
good. Thus it appears that the germs of the mon- 
archy that sprang up in the days of Samuel, the 
prophet, went back to the time of Moses ; and that 
they were hidden in the theocracy that went before 
it, as the wings of the moth are folded up for future 
use within the worm that produces it, or as the plant 
is invisibly shut up in the seed from which it is to 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


3 


issue. From time to time this monarchial tendency- 
in the Israelitish constitution came out in the days 
of the Judges, under whom the nation, or some part 
of the nation, were temporarily ' governed by the 
leadership of a single man. So that when at last, in 
answer to their wish, God “ gave them a king in his 
anger,” it was the development of a principle known 
before, and already partially acted upon ; but the sub- 
stitution, for an unconnected and irregular series of 
individuals called forth by a special exigency, of a 
continuous and hereditary line of sovereigns charged 
with the customary functions of government in or- 
dinary as well as in extraordinary times. 

I intend to bring the kings of this line before you 
in a series of lectures, in order to extract from them 
the instruction which the word of God intends to 
convey to us in the record of their respective lives. 
This royal line is prefaced by the exceptional reign 
of Saul, a man after their own human heart, given 
to Israel to teach them the folly of their choice; 
but it has its permanent establishment in David, the 
man after God’s heart. In his descendants it con- 
tinues till it vanishes in the Babylonish Captivity, 
not again to reappear till it should revive in the per- 
son of that Son of David, whose “kingdom is not of 
this world,” when the dishonored sceptre of civil 
rule, in the hand of the Idumean Herod, was about 
to depart from Judah and a lawgiver from between 
his feet, because that Shiloh had come to whom the 
gathering of the people was to be. Herein God 
had fulfilled his threat to the last of the line, the 


4 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


miserable Zedekiah. “And thou, profane wicked 
prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity 
shall have an end. Thus saith the Lord God: Re- 
move the diadem, and take off the crown : this shall 
not be the same ; exalt him that is low and abase 
him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn 
it : and it shall be no more until he come whose right 
it is ; and I will give it him.” As preliminary to 
this series of discoveries, it has seemed to me that 
it might be useful to go back and show how the 
germs of the kingdom were to be found in the civil 
polity of the Israelites from the beginning ; how it 
was foretold and provisions were made for it by their 
great lawgiver himself; how it came at last, not as a 
fortuitous and unpremeditated measure, but as the 
fulfillment of a purpose all along cherished in the 
mind of God ; and how the course of preceding 
events had led on to it as a natural, if not necessary, 
consequence. 

The civil polity given to the children of Israel at 
their first establishment in the land of Canaan was a 
pure theocracy. What then is a theocracy ? The 
word signifies the rule of God. In a sense this word 
is applicable to every form of human government, 
for by him “ kings rule and princes decree justice.” 
“ There is no power but of God ; the powers that be 
are ordained of God ; whosoever therefore resisteth 
the power resisteth the ordinance of God.” Who- 
ever is the ruler, however he obtained his rule, and 
by whatsoever tenure he holds it, he is but a subor- 
dinate and a deputy, and holds his authority in sub- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


5 


jection to the dominion of Him whose ‘‘kingdom 
ruleth over all.” But God was pleased to establish 
over his chosen people a closer and more immediate 
authority of his own, one that ordinarily dispensed 
with the interventions of a human head, and that 
was designed to stand to them in the direct relations 
of their civil chief magistrate. They were to have 
no human king or chieftain, elective or hereditary, 
no visible throne or sceptre, no man whose word 
should be law to them, or whose guidance they were 
to trust in peace and in war. Their Sovereign was 
invisible ; his palace was in the skies, far above, out 
of their sight ; his behests were made known to 
them supernaturally by direct communication from 
Heaven. This was a great honor and a great privi- 
lege, for it ensured to them a control absolutely 
perfect and infallible, a direction in which there 
could never be the slightest defect, error, or fickle- 
ness. And if the spirit of a perfect faith and obedi- 
ence had been in them, it must have brought to them 
perfect bliss and perfect prosperity. But these qual- 
ities were indispensable to its well-working. They 
must Him that is invisible. He must be real to 
them, habitually recognized, his presence felt, and 
his agency remembered. He would “ guide them 
with his eye,” and they must be always looking 
to his eye to discover the import of its glances, to 
heed the direction of its outlook. If they did not, 
he would be to them but a dumb ruler, whose mind 
they could not learn and interpret. And when they 
learned his will they must be ready to obey it im- 


6 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


plicitly. There must be no hesitation, no reluctance, 
no criticism, no bringing into comparison or compe- 
tition with it some judgment of their own, or of 
some other human creature, no paring it down, no 
adding to it. In this sense Israel might say, so as 
no other nation ever could say, ‘‘ The Lord is our 
Lawgiver, the Lord is our King.” The law of Moses 
provided no human head for them. There were 
local and tribal magistrates for inferior needs; but 
to Jehovah they were to look as to them all and 
more than all that the kings of the earth were to 
the nations under them. This is a pure theocracy. 

But the history of the nation soon proved it a 
failure, not on account of any fault in it or in its 
All-wise Author, but in them. This result their 
great lawgiver foresaw, their God foresaw, and there- 
fore provided for them in due time the abandon- 
ment of this system and the substitution of another, 
not so good intrinsically as the first — not so good 
practically if they had used that well ; but better for 
them, yes, necessary for them, being such as they 
were, if they were not to be left a prey to anarchy, 
and given up to “ confusion and every evil work.” 
Look at the history of Israel during the period of 
the Judges. For, remember, the Judges were not 
stated rulers, but exceptional chiefs, raised up for 
emergencies, when ruin seemed to be impending 
under the theocratic rule against which they had 
grown rebellious. They forgot God, — that is the 
descriptive and pregnant phrase under which their 
defection is described. They ceased to recognize 


SOVEREIGN’S OF JUDAH. 


7 


Him ; they did not look after His will ; they did not 
resort to Him for guidance and protection. They 
were not subject to His will when they knew it. God 
ceased to be to them a present God, a God active in 
their concerns, the God whose love encompassed 
their nation, and kept it as the apple of His eye. 
He grew to be to them a God afar off. The nations 
about them had visible gods and visible kings. They 
tired of the theocracy, and would be as the nations, 
and have a court and worship, palpable, ornamental, 
dazzling. God left them to themselves, and they 
were soon plunged in disaster and distress. There 
was anarchy at home, abroad defeat and captivity. 
In their distress they remembered God, and he sent 
deliverers to them. But their repentances were 
shallow’ and brief. Another and another human sa- 
vior came, but there was no permanent recovery of 
the lost principle of faith and obedience. These 
Judges were proleptic outcomings of that monarch- 
ial principle which was finally to be established in a 
continuous line of kings that was to be at once the 
punishment and the remedy of their apostasy from 
the true principles of that glorious theocracy which 
they had so miserably rejected and disgraced. Their 
story is well told in their own sacred history: 
“ They forsook the Lord God of their fathers, 
which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and 
followed other gods, of the gods of the people that 
were round about them, and bowed themselves unto 
them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And the 
anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He de- 


8 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


livered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled 
them, and He sold them into the hands of their ene- 
mies round about, so that they could not any longer 
stand before their enemies. Nevertheless, the Lord 
raised up judges, which delivered them out of the 
hand of those that spoiled them. And when the 
Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with 
the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their 
enemies all the days of the judge. And it came to 
pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned 
and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, 
in .following other gods to serve them, and to bow 
down unto them ; they ceased not from their own 
doings nor from their stubborn way.'* They had 
shown themselves unworthy of the theocracy. They 
had grown weary of the theocracy. They asked a 
king. And God gave them a king. 

Yet the transition was not abrupt. Preparation 
had been made for it in previous time. The admin- 
istration of the last two Judges wore much the ap- 
pearance of a settled and ordinary magistracy. In 
Eli the office of judge was held by the High Priest. 
Samuel seems to have succeeded him without an in- 
terval, and he established and maintained a regular 
system in the discharge of his official functions. 
“ He went from year to year in circuit to Bethel, and 
Gilgal, and Mizpeh, and judged Israel in all those 
places. And his return was to Ramah ; for there was 
his house, and there he judged Israel; and there he 
built an altar unto the Lord.” Plainly, his orderly 
and systematic rule was something quite unlike the 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


9 


rude, wild exercise of power by Gideon, or Jephthah, 
or Samson. He was the agent of God in effecting 
the transition when the time had come for it, and 
the first king, selected, according to the low standard 
of the national ideas, more for physical stature, 
strength, and comeliness, than for any higher quali- 
ties, was never intended to be the progenitor of a 
sacred line and the ancestor of the Messiah ; but 
rather by his frenzied misrule to teach the nation 
their folly, that they might perceive and know that 
their wickedness was great in asking them a king." 
David is the true beginning of the Hebrew monar- 
chy, the forefather of a line of whom Christ came, 
that “ King that should reign and prosper " in a 
higher sense than any earthly sovereign, the King 
who is at once “ the Lamb of God " and “ the lion of 
the tribe of Judah;" who, while He came “meek 
and sitting upon an ass," has “upon His head many 
crowns," and “on His vesture and upon His thigh a 
name written. King of kings and Lord of lords." 
In this line of kings the divine foresight of Moses 
finds its true object : “ When thou art come unto the 
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt 
possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I 
will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are 
about me ; thou shalt in any wise set him king over 
thee whom the Lord thy God shalt choose ; one from 
among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee ; 
thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is 
not thy brother. But he shall not multiply horses 
to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, 


10 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


to the end that he should multiply horses ; foras- 
much as the Lord hath said unto you, ye shall hence- 
forth return no more that way. Neither shall he mul- 
tiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away; 
neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver 
and gold. And it shall be when he sitteth upon the 
throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy 
of this law in a book out of that which is before the 
priests, the Levites : and it shall be with him, and he 
shall read therein all the days of his life, that he may 
learn to fear the Lord^his God, to keep all the words 
of this law and these statutes, to do them: that his 
heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that 
he turn not aside from the commandment, to the 
right hand or to the left ; to the end that he may 
prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children 
in the midst of Israel.” So precisely and minutely 
was the law of the kingdom laid down long before 
its establishment, by that divine v/isdom and love 
which, in yielding to the perverse desire which called 
for it, would avert, so far as might be, the evils like- 
ly to follow in its train. Alas ! how poor a copy of 
this divine pattern were most of the kings of the line 
of David ; from Solomon, whose Egyptian alliance, 
and polygamy, and vast accumulations of wealth, 
and forgetfulness of God’s law, set the evil example, 
the imitation of which went on through his degene- 
rate descendants, to the close. The warnings and 
prohibitions of the prophecy display unmistakable 
signs of a divine provision, so accurately do they 
picture forth the dangers to which the kings of 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


II 


Israel would be exposed, and the actual evils which 
their history portrays. 

Whether their privileges are a real benefit to us, 
and meet with a due appreciation and improvement 
by us or not, depends not so much on their essential 
and inherent value as upon our capacity and dispo- 
sition to apprehend and use them. Surely no peo- 
ple on the earth were ever so favored as Israel was 
in having God in so close and intimate a relation 
to them as He was under the theocracy, to take the 
immediate direction of their affairs and order all 
things for them with an infallible wisdom and good- 
ness, free from all the errors of judgment and de- 
fects of ability which must attend on any earthly 
guidance. And yet they thought the theocracy not 
good for them, and it was not. It was better than 
anything that could be substituted for it in itself, as 
much better as a divine thing is than anything hu- 
man. But in order to get from it the good it offered, 
they needed to be raised to a higher plane of 
spirituality than they were willing to maintain. 
They must be spiritually-minded men, and their God 
must be to them a present and living reality, the 
God with whom they daily and hourly had to do. 
This they did not like, and would take no pains to 
attain or preserve it. And without it the theocracy 
was not a blessing to them. Nay, it became a disad- 
vantage, for while it did not confer upon them its 
own special benefits, it did serve to intercept the 
benefits of that far inferior rule of which it took the 
place. They grew weary of it. It was distasteful 


12 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


to them. Anarchy, discord, continual commotions, 
which there was no adequate human power to re- 
strain, and which, in accordance with its laws, it 
could not interfere to remedy, swallowed up the na- 
tion, and drove it on toward barbarism and wretch- 
edness. They petitioned for its abrogation, and God, 
in pity not more than in anger, withdrew from them 
that which they knew not how to appreciate and im- 
prove, and granted them in its stead that which their 
weakness and wickedness rendered fitter for their 
wants. To thrust this blessing upon them any 
longer was only to cast pearls before swine, to in- 
crease their responsibility and guilt, and open a door 
to a flood of practical evils. So our Saviour, when on 
earth, taught the people in parables, because they 
were not yet able to bear the plainer disclosure of 
truth, that he might relieve them of the sin of re- 
jecting truths which yet were precious, and, as sub- 
sequently explained, are a source of instruction and 
blessing to the Church till the end of time. 

Israel is our warning, my brethren, “to the in- 
tent that we should not lust after evil things as they 
also lusted our warning, as in every stage of their 
history, so perhaps somewhat specially in this. 
Alas! how ready are we to reject God to follow 
after the “ devices and desires of our own hearts”! 
He seeks, in his Church, wherein he has made us, 
as Israel was, his peculiar people, to be to us a God 
near at hand, and not a God afar off ; to guide us 
with his eye, protect us with his hand, and rule 
us with his light and easy yoke. But we do not 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 1 3 

like this proximity, this intimacy, this interference. 
We prefer a God whom we may worship with a 
stately veneration, a dignified homage, a cold and 
formal service. Such nearness makes us too pain- 
fully sensible of our weakness, sinfulness, and de- 
pendence. We would fain interpose between us and 
him some worldly mediation better suited to our 
W'orldly nature and unsanctified inclinations, and to 
derive from it the maxims that are to fashion our 
conduct, and the solaces that are to relieve our grief ; 
to desert “ the fountain of living waters and hew 
out to ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can 
hold no water ; ” to say to ourselves, “ Nay, but a 
king shall reign over us ” — fashion, opinion, interest, 
some earthly standard of goodness and virtue, 
when “ the Lord our God is our King.” To what 
else is due the low rate of religious feeling and action 
even among those who, we would fain believe, are 
aiming to make conscience the guide of their ways ? 
Surely the lives of most Christians are not apparently 
those of men whose souls are pervaded by a constant 
recognition of God as their ruler and guide, their 
father, benefactor, and portion. This disposition to 
get away from God, and be like the nations around 
us, how pervading, how strong, how influential it is 
in the Church of God ! And God lets us have our 
way, and therefore we are poor, feeble, dwarfish 
Christians. He gives us our desire, and sends lean- 
ness withal into our souls. 


II. 


SAUL. 

And he had a son, whose name was Saul, a choice young man, and 
a goodly : and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier 
person than he : from his .shoulders and upward he was higher than 
any of the people. — I. Sam. ix : 2. 

This is that first king of Israel, of whom God, 
by the mouth of Hosea, said, “ I gave thee a king 
in mine anger and took him away in my wrath,” — 
the giving and the taking away alike a token and a 
fruit of his displeasure. Yet, doubtless, the time 
had come where a change in the civil polity of Israel 
was expedient, if not indispensable. The pure the- 
ocracy under which they at first lived was the no- 
blest form of government ever bestowed on men. 
But to its salutary working, a correspondent noble- 
ness was needful on the part of its subjects. This 
Israel had lost. Faith and love, the true principles 
of loyalty, had grown weak in them. They no 
longer saw “ Him that is invisible.” They no longer 
felt the pressure of his guiding and controlling hand. 
The spiritual was fading, the material was gaining 
the mastery. They were getting to be altogether 
unfit to be ruled by an invisible Master, whose 
laws were written in their hearts. They desired a 
visible. monarch and a spoken mandate, instead of 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


15 


the vision of the seer and the mystic gleam of the 
Urim and Thummim. The pillar of fire that had 
led them through the wilderness had retired within 
the curtains of the inner tabernacle, and was hidden 
from their view. They needed an earthly head, 
whose presence they could recognize and honor, and 
whose behests they could hear and heed. The want 
of such a head placed them, as they thought, in un- 
favorable contrast with the peoples about them, who 
seemed to them to enjoy a more compact, vigorous, 
and efficient nationality under their respective kings 
and rulers. They asked of Samuel a human sovereign 
to judge them in peace and lead them in war. Such a 
one, they thought, would add to their national dignity 
and power. And being such as they were, their 
thought was right. They had made themselves unfit 
to be governed directly by God ; it was better that 
they should be ruled by a human vicegerent, who, if 
he were wise and religious, could interpret God to 
them, and be a mouthpiece to utter to them his will. 
They came to Samuel and said, “ Make us a king 
to judge us like all the nations.'' Alas! how has 
this hankering to be like the world clung to the 
Church of God, to be rid of the singularity which 
makes them a peculiar people, and be, in garish 
show and ensigns of outward glory, a kingdom com- 
ing with observation instead of a kingdom not of 
this world. This spirit in the Church it is that has 
culminated in the Popedom, this worldly longing 
after a visible head. The Lord, by his servant 
Samuel granted the request — how often are men 


1 6 SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 

punished by letting them have their way ! — and 
he gave them a king in Saul, the son of Kish, of 
whom our text gives us a description. You will 
perceive that his qualifications were physical ; he 
was tall and handsome, a fine specimen of manly 
beauty, “ from his shoulders and upward higher than 
any of the people, ” no goodlier man among the 
children of Israel ; not a word is said about his 
qualities of mind and heart, of his intellectual, 
moral, or religious attributes. There is irony in the 
choice. The people want visible, material grandeur 
in their head. They have it. Their king is a per- 
fect animal. And yet it were injustice to Saul not 
to recognize in him higher qualifications which, 
rightly used, might have made him a useful and 
honored monarch. He had patriotism and courage, 
and some just conceptions of his duty and work as 
a sovereign. And he had warm affections. Nay, it 
was this very warmth of love that soured, at last, 
under disappointment and misapprehension, into a 
jealous malignity. Saul is not a man to be looked 
upon with abhorrence so much as with commisera- 
tion — a victor even more than an offender. Sp 
chosen and so endowed, he began well and bril- 
liantly, and with good promise of permanent useful- 
ness and success. Alas, that the hope was blasted 
in the bud ! and so this bright morning of his reign 
led on to nothing better than misrule, frenzy, pre- 
sumption, and suicide, so that in the end God, as 
he had given him in his anger, “ took him away in 
his wrath.” 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


17 

Saul was the elder of the two sons of Kish, a 
wealthy land-holder and herdsman of the tribe of 
Benjamin. He seems to have partaken of that 
warmth and energy of disposition, so capable of 
being stirred into fierceness and violence, which is 
ascribed to the tribe in the prediction, “ Benjamin 
shall raven as a wolf.” His early life passed quietly, 
with no recorded incidents, in the ordinary avoca- 
tions of husbandry. He seems to have just reached 
manhood, when, while out on the errand of seek- 
ing his father’s asses that had gone astray, he en- 
countered the prophet Samuel, who announced to 
him the astounding intelligence that he was divinely 
designated to be the king of his people, — a commu- 
nication which the prophet confirmed by anointing 
him and requiring for him from others acts of hom- 
age and distinction. And then “ God gave him ano- 
ther heart,” not a moral renovation, not a change 
of the will and affections toward God and his 
service, but such an elevation and expansion of 
mind as would fit him for the new sphere of action 
on which he was called to enter. The horizon of 
his views enlarged. He felt the springing of new 
aims, hopes, and purposes within him. He awoke 
to the consciousness of powers and capabilities 
which had before lain dormant. He was trans- 
formed inwardly as his position and relations in the 
social state were altered ; and, made a king, he be- 
came kingly. Such changes in men, as their exter- 
nal condition changes, may come without a miracle ; 
and perhaps no man thoroughly knows what is in 


1 8 SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 

him till its hidden and unnoticed seeds are quick- 
ened into life by circumstances, and then he may 
become as much a wonder to himself as to the be- 
holders. But here a special divine element entered 
into the transformation, and made it more striking 
and complete. Meeting now a company of prophets, 
the divine afflatus seized him, and he prophesied 
with them, — proof to him that a special power of the 
Spirit of God was resting upon him. He is now led 
by Samuel to Mizpeh, and there publicly inaugu- 
rated. He was as yet modest and unsophisticated. 
When he was first informed of the high destiny that 
awaited him, he had pleaded his insignificancy : I 
am a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of 
Israel, and my family, the least of all the families of 
the tribe of Benjamin ; ” and now that the time of 
his public inauguration has come, he is found shame- 
facedly “ hidden among the stuff.'’ But he is drawn 
forth and presented to view. And when the people 
saw his comeliness and his stature, that there was 
none like him among them, they shouted and said, 
“God save the King.” Yet, with all the budding 
hopes and aspirations that were stirring in his 
bosom, he quietly went home without affecting pomp, 
or putting forth authority. There went with him a 
band of men whose hearts God had touched. But 
the children of Belial said, “ How shall this man 
save us?” And they despised him and brought him 
no presents. But he held his peace, and waited pa- 
tiently and modestly the occasion that was to call his 
kingly powers into action, and vindicate his suffi- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


19 


ciency for his office. That occasion ere long came. 
The Ammonites assaulted the frontier city of Ja- 
besh gilead, and reduced it to extremities. In their 
distress, the people bethought themselves of their 
youthful sovereign, and appealed to him for help. 
He promptly put himself at the head of the body 
of men, perhaps that very band whose hearts God 
had touched, and marched to their relief. The aid 
was timely and effectual. The enemy were worsted 
and fled ; and the emancipated town, mindful of its 
debt to Saul, repaid it years afterwards by taking 
down his dishonored body from the wall of Beth- 
shan, and giving it honorable burial. The exploit 
fully vindicated his capacity to reign, and silenced 
the voice of doubt and discontent. The people 
were now ready to put to death the men of Belial 
that had spoken lightly of him, but the magnanim- 
ity of Saul rescued them from their danger. . The 
nation assembled at Gilgal and “renewed the king- 
dom ” to him by a sacred investiture, “ and all the 
men of Israel rejoiced greatly.” He was now at 
the. top of popularity and influence, and set himself 
vigorously to the work of delivering his country 
from the power of the Philistines, by whom, in the 
days of confusion that preceded his reign, it had 
been ravished and impoverished. But alas ! this ze- 
nith of his prosperity in his life sowed the seed of his 
subsequent misery and ruin. The Philistines were 
encamped in Michmash, and Saul and his forces 
waited in Gilgal till Samuel, according to his ap- 
pointment, should come to offer a sacrifice and 


20 


SO VE REIGNS OF JUDAH. 


invoke the divine blessing on their enterprise. Sam- 
uel delayed his coming, and the impatient, head- 
strong king, flushed with victory and eager for the 
fight, usurped the prophet's office and offered the 
sacrifice himself. Soon Samuel came ; and then fell 
from his lips the fatal words which ever after rankled 
like a poisoned arrow in the heart of the unhappy 
king: “Now thy kingdom shall not continue; the 
Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart 
. . . to be captain over his people." Still the 

tide of success was not arrested, though in it all he 
carried with him the gnawing pain of the prophet’s 
warning. “ Saul took the kingdom over Israel, and 
fought against all his enemies on every side, against 
Moab, and against the children of Ammon, and 
against Edom, and against the kings of Zobah, and 
against the Philistines ; and whithersoever he turned 
himself, he vexed them;’’ and he “delivered Israel 
out of the hands of them that spoiled them.’’ He 
was a splendid monarch, shining in the light of an 
uninterrupted series of martial successes. But noiVj 
a second offence was to deepen his crime and his 
trouble. By the command of God he waged against 
Amelek a war of extermination. He was successful 
in the conflict ; but, it might seem less out of ten- 
derness than of pride, he saved Agag, the king of 
Amelek, who had fallen into his hands, alive, to 
grace his triumph by the display of a royal captive. 
But again the stern voice of that faithful mentor, 
who had brought him to the throne and had watched 
his proceedings since with a loving and anxious eye, 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


21 


Uttered God’s displeasure and condemnation in his 
ears : “ Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and 
to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is 
as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as in- 
iquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the 
word of the Lord, he also hath rejected thee from 
being king.” The smitten king was sad, but his 
was no true repentance, only that sorrow of the 
world that worketh death.” Samuel came no more 
near him, but he long continued to mourn for him, 
for he still stood before his mind’s eye the comely, 
modest, hopeful youth whom he once had learned 
to admire and love. From this time forward Saul 
fell into melancholy and fitful moods. The elasticity 
of his spirit was broken. The stimulus of hope was 
gone. The shadow of doom hung over him. “ An 
evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.” Some 
demon with God’s leave took advantage of his weak- 
ness to haunt and torture him. Henceforth it is 
difficult to say how far his exorbitances and extrav- 
agances of action were the acts of a responsible 
being. 

To soothe and cheer him, David, the youthful son 
of Jesse of Bethlehem, a skillful player on the harp, 
was sent for to come to the court, and soon with his 
sweet music and winning ways won his affection and 
became his favorite. But when David’s marvelous 
exploit in slaying Goliath of Gath drew forth from 
the women of Israel the song, “ Saul slew his thou- 
sands and David his ten thousands,” the demon of 
jealousy took possession of Saul’s heart, and love 


22 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


turned to bitter enmity. He saw his star waning 
before the rising luminary ; and he saw in David 
that “ man better than he,” whom God had destined 
to possess his forfeited throne. ‘‘Jealousy is the 
rage of a man.” “Jealousy is cruel as the grave: 
the coals thereof are as coals of fire, which hath a 
most vehement flame.” Henceforth dread of David 
became the ruling passion of his life, to which all 
the outrages and excesses into which he fell are 
attributable. It had become a mania, under the 
influence of which his reason was upset, and all 
things were distorted and perverted. It haunted 
him incessantly, and with a few intervals of sanity 
and affectionateness drove him on to his untimely 
death. He attempted to kill his son Jonathan only 
because he loved David. He slew the priests of the 
Lord only because they had received David. In 
vain David behaved himself with exemplary mod- 
esty, prudence, forbearance, and generosity. The 
heart of the king was not softened toward him. He 
drove him to dwell in caverns and to associate with 
outlaws. He chased him “ like a partridge on the 
mountains.” He forced him to take refuge in a 
strange land. Nothing would appease his enmity 
or check his rage. At last the catastrophe came. 
The Philistines spread themselves out in the north- 
ern part of the kingdom, and the poor, disheartened, 
and despondent monarch was compelled to take the 
field against them. No prophet brought him a word 
of encouragement. Urim and Thummim yielded 
him no response. In his desperation he goes to the 


SOVEI^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


23 


Witch of Endor, some necromancer who pretended 
to pry into the secrets of the invisible world by com- 
munion with the spirits of the dead. Samuel, be- 
yond her thought, comes to her incantation ; but his 
message to the tortured monarch is, To-morrow 
shalt thou be with me.” On that morrow the battle 
was joined on “the mountains of Gilboa,” and Israel 
fled before the enemy. Saul, wounded and deserted 
at the close of the battle, asks of his armor-bearer 
the poor boon of putting an end to his life ; and, 
when refused, takes his sword, falls upon it, and dies 
by his own act 

Two or three lines of thought are suggested by 
our subject, which we will briefly follow. 

An early and sudden elevation is full of danger to 
its subject. This was Saul’s trial, and it was too 
much for him. His prosperity was his bane. A 
rustic youth, suddenly taken from rural occupations 
to be the head of a nation, and left to the full exer- 
cise of irresponsible power, almost immediately in- 
vested also with the popularity and eclat that wait 
upon successful military enterprises, a king and a 
conqueror, it is not strange that he grew heady and 
high-minded, impetuous, arbitrary, and impatient of 
control, expecting all to bow before him, and brook- 
ing no resistance of his will. Nothing but deep relig- 
ious principles, such as would teach him his true posi- 
tion as the servant and instrument of a supreme will, 
whose behests it was his to honor and obey, could 
operate as a sufficient counterpoise to these baneful 
influences, and keep him humble and gentle. Alas ! in 


24 


so FEI^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


Saul these were wanting. Hence, the precipitancy 
that would not brook the prophet’s delay, and the 
presumption that dared to intrude into sacred func- 
tions and in the threat that it called forth, planted 
the sting into his soul that turned him into a mad- 
man and a persecutor. The maturer judgment and 
more chastened feeling that time and experience 
bring, even when religion does not exert its restrain- 
ing and subduing power, might have saved him from 
his awful fate. That is safe eminence into which a 
man grows by degrees, whose successive increments, 
gradually attained, are less felt, and so are less liable 
to engender pride and lead to unbecoming exhibi- 
tions and excesses. Greatness so gained may be 
worn safely and gracefully. “ Behold,” says Habak- 
kuk, his soul that is lifted up is not upright in 
him: but the just shall live by his faith.” If that 
counterbalancing, regulating faith be there, all is 
safe. But “ pales set upon an high place can never 
stand against the wind ; ” and what but weak and 
unstable palings are young men, suddenly lifted into 
the high places of society, without firm and well- 
settled principles, there to encounter the winds of 
passion and pride, of adulation and self-interest, and, 
in the irresistible onset, sure to be blown down into 
wreck and ruin. Seek not high things for thyself 
prematurely, but rather seek patiently the qualifica- 
tions that shall fit thee for high things, if God shall 
assign them to thee. 

Guard against the influence of jealousy. No tem- 
per of mind is more wretched and pernicious, more 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


25 


painful to the individual, more unjust to others. It 
is a creative and prolific feeling, and brings in its 
train a host of evils whose name is legion. Crowds 
of imaginary troubles spring up under its power, and 
those that have any substance and reality are fright- 
fully magnified and exaggerated ; trifles grow into 
monsters, and the life is haunted with spectres of 
its own creation that go with it into all its walks, 
till the soul becomes “a miry sea that cannot rest,” 
and dwells in an atmosphere of universal mistrust 
and suspicion. See all this forcibly exemplified in 
the case of Saul. When once the thought had en- 
tered his mind that David was his destined succes- 
sor, the innocent young man, exemplary and long- 
suffering, as he was in all the duties of a son-in-law 
and a subject, became an object of continual sus- 
picion. In the eyes of the unhappy king, he was 
transformed into an intriguing supplanter, and all his 
words and motions became indications of sinister 
designs. His own virtuous and faithful son grew 
in his estimation to be a plotter against his throne 
and life. And the priests of God were changed into 
a band of conspirators, linked with the son of Jesse 
in his aspirations. He could trust no one ; he could 
see nothing as it really was ; everything became to 
him an omen of approaching rebellion. His fancies 
became realities : and he dwelt in a world of imagi- 
nary wrong and horror, crazed and frenzied by his 
own distempered thoughts. To such excesses of 
jealous feeling we may not be liable. Our situation 
may not furnish its incentives or occasions. Still in 


2 


26 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


its lower measures it is apt to infest human hearts. 
It is, in fact, a natural product of self-love, always 
ready to think itself assaulted, or defrauded of its 
just demands, and wherever it is, it is a fruitful seed 
of “ envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitable- 
ness.” It makes the man a self-tormenter, and a 
tormenter of others. Let us guard against its insidi- 
ous approaches and sedulously cultivate, as the best 
protection against it, the charity that “ thinketh no 
evil ; ” and while we are careful not to “ think of 
ourselves above what we ought to think,” think 
soberly, be “ patient toward all men,” and “ not easily 
provoked.” 

Finally it should be evident to us that the only 
true foundation for solidity and stability in a hu- 
man life is the fear and love of God firmly fixed in 
the soul. Without it, “ men of high degree are 
vanity,” and all men, in whatsoever conditions, ill- 
prepared to bear themselves with dignity, firmness, 
and serenity amidst the “ changes and chances of 
this mortal life.” This, Saul lacked, and so, with 
many qualities of person and mind that might have 
made him useful, honored, and happy, lost himself, 
and made melancholy shipwreck, becoming in the 
end like a helmless vessel, “ driven with the wind, 
and tossed ” on a “ raging wave of the sea, foaming 
out his own shame.” If we would be truly noble, 
truly successful, truly virtuous, truly beneficent, truly 
good, we must dig deep and lay our foundation on a 
rock, the rock of a firm trust in God, a humble re- 
liance on his mercy, a love of his name and ser- 


27 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


vice, and a conscientious conformity to his will. 
Then let the rains descend, and the floods come, and 
the winds blow, and beat upon our house — it will 
not fall, for it is founded upon a rock. In all time 
of our prosperity we shall be meek ; in all time of 
our tribulation, tranquil. 


III. 


DAVID. 

The Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord 
hath commanded him to be captain over his people. — I. Samuel 
XIII : 14. 

This is lofty praise; what praise indeed could be 
loftier, what better thing can be said of a man than 
that he is a man after God’s own heart? The sub- 
ject of this praise is David, in whom whatever war- 
rants its bestowment must therefore have inhered, 
because as it is divine praise it cannot be erroneous 
or extravagant. It is the judgment of one who looks 
not in the outward appearance, but tries the reins 
and the heart. How often we meet in Scripture 
with such expressions as “ righteous before God.” 
What God pronounces a man to be, that he is. 

But in what sense was David a man after God’s 
own heart ? Certainly he was not a faultless man, 
and in one act of his life he was guilty of a crime of 
flagrant enormity. Some may say he was specially 
dear to God as a ruler, maintaining His worship in its 
purity amidst abounding idolatry, preserving his sub- 
jects, to the extent of his power, from the taint of 
heathenism, and ruling them by the principles and 
maxims of God’s revealed laws; being thus in all 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


29 


governmental matters a model king, such a king as 
God would have a king to be. But this seems a very 
insufficient answer. It is not easy, and it is not 
right thus to separate the magistrate from the man, 
and praise the ruler in his rule simply, whose own 
life is a contradiction of the principles he enforces 
upon others. We must look deeper for the grounds 
of this divine praise, and I think, if we look candidly 
at the case of David, they will not be very hard to 
find, and at the same time extenuate his faults in 
setting them forth, while we do not candidly make 
it evident that he furnishes no just occasion for the 
scoff of the infidel or the perplexity of the believer. 

If, then, we find a man who habitually cherishes 
the fear and love of God in his heart, sets God be- 
fore him and lives under a sense of responsibility to 
Him, trusts in His goodness, honors His government, 
and loves His service, and who, if sometimes “ through 
the weakness of his mortal nature ” and the force of 
temptation, he is betrayed into sin, even though it 
be in some of its more heinous and offensive forms, 
turns to God with “ a hearty repentance and true 
faith,” and labors with earnest diligence to “ cleanse 
himself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,” 
and “ recover himself out of the snare of the devil,” 
such a man is certainly a man after God’s own 
heart, both in the general tenor of his life and in his 
repentance for his sins, for in both he is what God 
would have him to be, what God enjoins and ap- 
proves, that God by whom all sincere and hearty ser- 
vice is graciously accepted, and “ a broken and con- 


30 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


trite heart is never despised.” That such a man was 
David, no one who reads his history with fairness 
and candor can question. Thus, then, he was a man 
after God’s own heart, such a man as God would 
have men to be, both before his fall as after it. Such 
a man is far more after God’s heart, more accordant 
with His mind and taste, than a man who has never 
done anything very bad in his life and never done 
anything that is very good, a man of dry proprie- 
ties and decencies, whose morality is the fruit of 
amiability, or education, or calculation, and whose 
religion, if he professes any, is theory and routine, 
ceremony and punctilious observance. “Verily, 
verily,” said our Saviour to some just such people, 
“the publicans and harlots enter the kingdom of 
heaven before you.” The publican went down to 
his house justified rather than the Pharisee. This 
latter sort of goodness has no spirituality ; the for- 
mer, albeit it has some bad blot upon it, is instinct 
with life, and it may be, life of a high order. 

When Saul died on Mount Gilboa, the throne of 
Israel became virtually empty. Jonathan, his son, 
perished in the fight. David was the nation’s favor- 
ite, and the hearts of the people spontaneously 
turned to him as their defender and leader. A sec- 
tion of the nation under the lead of Abner, who was 
Saul’s cousin, set up Ish bosheth, the surviving son 
of Saul, as their sovereign, and he maintained an 
authority which seems to have been little more than 
nominal over a considerable territory for two years 
at Mahanaim, on the east side of the Jordan. David 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


31 


with his customary forbearance toward the family of 
Saul, left him unmolested. But Abner’s zeal when 
he was reproved by Ish-bosheth for presuming to take 
to him a concubine of the deceased sovereign, grew 
cold, and in vengeance he transposed his allegiance 
to David. With Abner all the strength of Ish-bosh- 
eth’s reign departed, and soon two officers of his 
army, thinking, but mistakenly, to ingratiate them- 
selves with David by their treacherous act, assassi- 
nated him as he lay sleeping in his bed. The whole 
nation now cordially united in recognizing David as 
their sovereign, and anointed him king at Hebron, 
where he had thus far kept his court. Soon after he 
took Jebus, which after the original conquest had 
fallen again into the hands of the Gentiles. In boast- 
ful confidence in the strength of their defenses, the 
inhabitants placed upon the ramparts the lame and 
the blind, as though such as these would be compe- 
tent defenders against David’s forces. But this in- 
sulting boast of the sufficiency for their defense of 
the lame and the blind, which was hated of David’s 
soul (in indignation at this silly act of derision and 
defiance), proved but an empty scoff. The city was 
taken, received the new name of Jerusalem, and be- 
came henceforth the capital of the kingdom. “ So 
David went on and grew great, and the Lord God 
of hosts was with him.” 

But we must, to do David justice, turn back to 
his early days. David was the son of ‘‘Jesse the 
Bethlehemite,” born at Bethlehem in the tribe of 
Judah, to which he belonged, a city which, though 


32 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


‘‘ little among the thousands of Judah,” the birth of 
his greater son in after days should render forever 
illustrious. In his descent from “ Ruth, the Moab- 
itess,” and more remotely from Rahab, the Canaan- 
ite, there seems to be early foretokenings of the 
breadth and comprehensiveness of that salvation 
which this son in the fullness of time should bring. 
In his boyhood he kept his father’s sheep at Bethle- 
hem, a circumstance which seems to have furnished 
him with the pastoral images that abound in his 
Psalms, notably in the Twenty-third, where he so 
sweetly sings, “ The Lord is my shepherd, I shall 
not want.” His skill in music brought him to the 
court of Saul, where it was employed effectually to 
soothe the distempered mind of the unhappy mon- 
arch, perturbed with remorse and apprehension. 
How long his stay with Saul was we cannot tell. 
But we next find him at the court, after a consider- 
able interval, apparently in a very different charac- 
ter, offering himself as the champion of Israel against 
the gigantic Philistine who had so long insulted the 
armies of Israel with his challenge to a personal con- 
flict. The change from a boy to the maturity of 
manhood, and the novelty of the office which he now 
proposed to take upon himself, so disguised him that 
the king failed to recognize in the bold warrior that 
stood before him the pretty minstrel of former days. 
The manly look and the intrepid bearing of the war- 
rior were too unlike those of the young harper to 
suggest the idea of their identity. The success of 
his daring adventure drew upon him the gaze of the 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


33 


nation, and called forth paeans of praise. Not only 
was Goliath slain, but the Philistine host was routed 
and driven from the land. But this applause was 
gall in the uneasy bosom of the king. It concen- 
trated upon David the dread that before had haunt- 
ed him vaguely. He did indeed give him his daugh- 
ter in marriage, as he promised to do, if his cham- 
pionship should prove successful ; but it was reluc- 
tantly, and with the shuffling evasion of substitut- 
ing Michal for Merab, whom David chose. Ever 
after, David was viewed by Saul with aversion and 
distrust. The romantic friendship of Jonathan, his 
son, for David served only to whet Saul’s fury. 
Soon David was driven from the court, forced to 
wander in the wilderness, compelled to dwell in dens 
and caverns, to associate with bandits, to feign mad- 
ness, and make a show of disloyalty in foreign lands. 
Association with him brought danger. Jonathan, on 
account of his friendship for him, barely escaped death 
at the hands of his infuriated father. The high- 
priest and his companion priests died for their kind- 
ness to the outcast. His father and mother were 
forced to leave the pleasant fields of Bethlehem and 
take refuge in Moab. There were rest and safety for 
him nowhere, till at last the royal madman died on 
Mount Gilboa. Through all this trying portion of 
his life, his patience, prudence, integrity, and gener- 
osity were wonderful. If he was not stainless, few 
could have been so tried with so slight a stain. 

But now the scene changes; opposition to him 
speedily gives way. He soon reigns over all Israel, 


34 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


and before long conquers the old heathen stronghold 
of Jebus and establishes his throne at Jerusalem. 
Here one of his earliest cares was “ to find out a 
place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God 
of Jacob.” He removes the ark from Kirjath-jearim, 
where it had rested from the days of Eli, and en- 
shrines it on Mount Zion with much pomp and 
ceremony. He arranges the Temple service and 
composes for it many divine songs. He organizes 
his kingdom and puts competent officers in charge 
of its different districts and departments of service. 
He spreads his conquest on every side till his domin- 
ions approach the dimensions of the territory origi- 
nally promised to Abraham. He is a glorious king, 
standing up proudly among the monarchs of the 
East. 

But now the scene is to change once more, and 
sadly. “ In all time of our prosperity good Lord 
deliver us.” The institution of polygamy, so fatal 
to domestic purity and peace, had already found its 
way into his royal establishment. But now his un- 
bridled passion leads astray the wife of his faithful 
servant Uriah, and induces him with hypocritical 
pretences to plot against his life and take it away. 

These would indeed be accounted light offences 
in an Oriental king, and some such sophistry as this 
perhaps blinded him to the enormity of his crime. 
He seems at any rate to have rested in it in calm 
self-complacency, till the prophet Nathan, with his 
graphic parable and bold words, “ Thou art the 
man,” roused his torpid conscience to action. A 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


35 


repentance not to be repented of,” deep, thorough, 
and effectual, followed ; the Fifty-first Psalm is its 
expression, and this has remained a pattern and a 
vehicle of penitential devotion to the Church ever 
since. With such a repentance God is well pleased. 
God forgave his sin, but its mischiefs were made to 
follow him all the days of his life, a reminder to 
himself, a warning to others. It was ordained that 
the sword should never depart from his house, and 
surely it never did ; the remainder of his days was 
but a series of calamities, deepening and entwining 
with one another, till his harassed life goes out at 
last in domestic strife and treachery. The vile in- 
cest of his son Amnon, the murderous revenge of 
Absalom, the intrigues, and finally the open rebel- 
lion of that arch demagogue, his own expulsion 
from his capital, hasty flight, and exile beyond Jor- 
dan, Absalom’s tragical death, the desertion of 
Ahithophel, the insolence and harshness of Joab, 
his error in numbering the people, and the severe 
infliction it brought upon his kingdom, the insurrec- 
tion of Sheba, the son of Bichri, and, in his deca- 
dence and decrepitude, the undutiful ambition of his 
son Adonijah, and the disloyal complicity of Joab, 
and of the high-priest Abiathar in that prince’s self- 
ish designs — such an accumulation of troubles shows 
the fulfillment of God’s threat, that he would raise 
up to him enemies in his own house, and the sword 
should never depart from it. But .now, “ the days 
drew near that David should die.” His trials, his 
greatness, his sin, and his suffering all terminate in 


3 ^ 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


that one event that happeneth to all ; “ denied the 
desire of his heart to build a house to the honor of 
God,” because “ he had shed much blood,” “ and 
had made great wars,” he occupied much of the 
last years of his life in gathering means and materi- 
als which his son Solomon employed in the erection 
of the magnificent temple on Mount Zion. “ Now 
these be the last words of David, David the son of 
Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, 
the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalm- 
ist of Israel, said. The Spirit of the Lord spake 
by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God 
of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me. He 
that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the 
fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the 
morning, when the sun riseth, even morning with- 
out clouds, as the grass springing out of the earth, 
by clear shining after rain. Although my house be 
not so with God, yet hath he made me with an ever- 
lasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure : for 
this is all my salvation, and all my desire.” 

Two most important and instructive lessons ap- 
pear to be impressively taught by this history. 

I. We are never secure against falling into sin, 
and sin of a very grievous and disgraceful character, 
and therefore we can only be safe by a life of con- 
tinual vigilance and prayer. We are never to think 
that the habit of goodness is so confirmed in us as 
to render us proof against temptation, or impervi- 
ous to the fiery darts of the wicked one. Especially 
is this true if our condition is one of ease and ful- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


37 


ness, affording us large opportunities for idleness 
and self-indulgence. It was not David wandering 
in the wilderness of Ziph or hiding in the cave of 
Adullam that fell ; but David living in luxury, and 
reclining in indolent ease on the roof of his palace 
at Jerusalem. A long continuance in virtue is no 
certain protection against evil doing. If it puts us 
off our guard, and it often does, it becomes a special 
liability to transgression. The case of David is not 
singular. Most of the pecuniary misdoings for which 
our age is rather remarkably distinguished occur in 
cases where they were least expected. “ Let him 
that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.” 
St. Peter, loudest and quickest in his master’s ser- 
vice, most confident of his firmness, most resentful 
of a suspicion of his stability, was the one that de- 
serted him the most shamefully. 

“ Beware of Peter’s word, 

Nor confidently say, 

I never will deny thee, Lord ; 

But, Grant I never may.” 

“ Happy is the man that feareth alway.” “ Watch 
and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” That was 
first said to Peter ; but surely it is also said to us, 
and with as much reason. Let us look at this case of 
David. It is in many ways monitory and profitable. 
David had emerged from a long series of trials and 
troubles, and had arrived at the acme of earthly 
felicity and distinction. His country had attained a 
strength and honor it had never known before, and 


38 


SOVEREIGNS OE JUDAH. 


to his powers and sagacity it owed its elevation. 
He was regarded as the nation’s savior, almost its 
father. His enemies had disappeared. His govern- 
ment was well ordered and secure. The city which 
his arms had taken, under his wise and liberal sway 
had become wealthy and beautiful. The stately 
palace he had inhabited, he had built for himself 
according to his own mind. His name was without 
a stain, and he had confidence in his own virtuous 
principles and purposes. An evil thought arose in 
his mind. He did not put it away, but gave place 
to it. It was fostered by “ the lust of the eye.” 
There were sophistries at hand to blind him to the 
heinousness of his growing purpose. He was an 
Oriental monarch. Matrimonial ties were not wont 
to be much reverenced by Oriental kings, and the 
lives of their subjects were looked upon as theirs, to 
keep or destroy, and so he could hypocritically say, 
with no just sense of the heinousness of his act, 
‘‘ The sword devoureth one as well as another,” as 
though Uriah had simply fallen by the chances of 
war, when his death had been contrived by Joab 
at his instigation. Alas, for the deceitfulness of 
sin ! How many are “ the crafts and assaults of the 
devil ! ” The sin is committed, and the conscience, 
drugged with such miserable opiates, lies torpid and 
silent. My brethren, when you suspect sin in aught 
that you desire or contemplate, be slow to listen to 
specious pleas and arguments in its defense, or in- 
genious palliations of its criminality. It is always 
safe to presume that the scruple is right, and the 


SOVEREIGNS OE JUDAH. , 


39 


defense insufficient. “ Happy is he that condemn- 
eth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.” 
Be not over confident of your own steadfastness, 
especially when things go well with you, and let 
your daily prayer be, according to your Lord’s com- 
mand, “ Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us 
from evil.” 

11. Sin forgiven leaves a sting behind. Men have 
not done with their wicked deeds when they have 
obtained pardon for them. The pardon is sure upon 
real repentance. “And David said unto Nathan, I 
have sinned against the Lord, and Nathan said unto 
David, The Lord hath put away thy sin.” But was 
David therefore done with his sin ? Had absolution 
wiped it out as with a sponge, so that his future life 
should be as though the sin had never been? That 
future life gives a melancholy answer to the ques- 
tion. Alas, what a tormented and uncomfortable 
life it was ! How he was made to possess his former 
iniquities to his dying day ! So God told him it 
should be, and so it was. Lust and cruelty were 
his sin, and lust and cruelty were his punishment. 
“ Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” 
Was there not an image of his concupiscence in the 
incestuous outrage of Amnon on his sister Tamar, 
and of his cruelty to the other in the murderous re- 
taliation of Absalom ? His household became the 
scene of horrible Crime and frightful disorder. Am- 
non outrages Tamar, Absalom kills Amnon, and 
when he is half pardoned by his father’s doting 
affection, he still remains dissatisfied and restless. 


40 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


Soon he concocts rebellion under a plausible pre- 
tence of zeal for the rights of the people, who are 
first made discontented by his artful insinuations, 
and are then conciliated by his liberal promises, till 
they are drawn into treason under his banner. 
Ahithophel, David’s trusted and able adviser, has his 
private grudge to satisfy ; for he is the grandfather 
of Bathsheba, who had been the wife of Uriah, and 
has not forgotten her wrongs ; and so, to wreak his 
cherished vengeance, he joins Absalom’s rebellion, 
and when the enterprise fails, goes home and com- 
mits suicide, and becomes a lively type of the traitor 
Judas. David is dethroned for the time, and is 
again a fugitive as of old. The rebellion is sup- 
pressed ; but the rough hand of Joab seals the peace 
in the blood of Absalom, who, with all his faults and 
misdeeds, is still his father’s darling, and the terri- 
ble death of his favorite son wrings the king’s heart 
with anguish. David is again seated on his throne, 
but there is no peace for him there. His vanity 
leads him to number the people, and a distressing 
pestilence follows. Sheba rises in rebellion against 
his authority and disturbs his kingdom. And, final- 
ly, just as his last sands are running out, and Solo- 
mon, divinely designated, is placed upon the throne 
to be his successor, Adonijah sets up a rival inter- 
est ; Joab, though rough, hitherto faithful to his 
master, joins the revolt ; the high-priest, Abiathar, 
who had been the sharer of his fortunes in all their 
changes heretofore, goes with Joab to the chief pow- 
ers in the State and in the Church, these all combine 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


41 


to thwart his will, and his sun goes down in turmoil 
and disorder. What bitter fruits of a forgiven sin ! 

My brethren, “ fools make a mock at sin.” They 
are fools that do. Say not, “ God is merciful and for- 
gives sin.” So he does, but “ there is mercy with him 
that he may be feared.” No man does any serious 
wrong that does not atone for it by suffering. If 
there be no direct inflictions of Providence, he can- 
not blot the memory of it out of his mind. It 
always remains a part of his history to be thought 
of with shame and sorrow. And he cannot help 
seeing its injurious effects, which are oftentimes ex- 
tensive and lasting; and looking upon this and that 
mischief as its fruit, he cannot refrain from saying 
to himself. This is my work. A drunkard may re- 
form, but if his bad example has made his children 
drunkards, and brought degradation upon his family, 
his reformation will not restore them. A debauchee 
may reform, but the victims of his wickedness still 
cry out against him, as the author of their ruin and 
misery. A man cannot cut himself off from his past. 
An enfeebled constitution, a tarnished reputation, a 
shortened life, are often the consequences of some 
long-past, perhaps disregarded transgression ; and to 
the last “ his bones are full of the sin of his youth, 
which shall lie down with him in the dust.” How 
much reason have we to pray, “ Oh, remember not 
against us our old sins.” And how true is it in 
human experience that godliness hath the promise 
of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to 


come. 


IV. 


SOLOMON. 

Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin by these things ? Yet among 
many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his 
God, and God made him king over all Israel : nevertheless even him 
did outlandish women cause to sin. — Nehemiah xiii : 26. 

Solomon is an enigma, and an enigma that per- 
haps is not capable of an altogether satisfactory- 
solution. I shall adopt the theory that seems to 
me, on the whole, the most consistent and recon- 
cilable with the seemingly conflicting facts. Scrip- 
ture does not aid us here, as in the case of most of 
the kings, by an infallible testimony concerning him, 
saying, in so many words, in a summary of his life 
that he did that which is right, or that which is 
evil, in the sight of the Lord. It leaves us to draw 
our conclusion from the facts which it sets before 
us. Let us advert to these facts as they are written 
for our learning. 

Our text declares of Solomon that he was be- 
loved of his God.” And the author of the first 
book of Kings tells us “that Solomon loved the 
Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father.” 
And though the latter expression is perhaps de- 
scriptive rather of a particular portion of his life, 
than of its whole, it would certainly appear to 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


43 


indicate a character in its beginning and outset in 
some good degree under the influence of religious 
faith and feeling. His prayer for wisdom at the 
entrance of his reign breathes a spirit of deep hu- 
mility, and of childlike simplicity and trust. No 
young monarch could have entered upon a great 
trust like his more worthily or becomingly. God 
accorded to him an answer “ above all that he could 
ask or think.” “ Because thou hast asked this, and 
hast not asked for thyself long life ; neither hast 
asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of 
thine enemies ; but hast asked for thyself under- 
standing to discern judgment ; behold, I have done 
according to thy words ; lo, I have given thee a 
wise and understanding heart ; so that there was 
none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall 
arise any like unto thee. And I have also given 
thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches and 
honor; so that there shall not be any among the 
kings like unto thee all thy days. And if thou wilt 
walk in my ways to keep my statutes and command- 
ments, as thy father David did walk, then I will 
lengthen thy days.” Yet it is noticeable that in 
this prayer, right and noble as it is, there is ex- 
pressed no deep sense of sin or moral evil. It is 
not evidently the deep cry of a soul that feels its 
sinfulness and spiritual impotency, and longs above 
all things for mercy and grace to help. “ The con- 
science is not yet, so far as one can see, fully awake 
and groaning under its burden. Perhaps in this was 
the defect that explains the ambiguity of his sub- 


44 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


sequent course. Yet his prayer at the dedication 
of the Temple is full of the loftiest spirit of faith 
and devotion, — the noblest utterance of the creed 
of Israel, setting forth the distance and yet the 
nearness of the eternal God, one, incomprehensible ; 
dwelling not in temples made with hands, yet ruling 
men ; hearing their prayers ; giving them all good 
things, wisdom, peace, righteousness.” He was, 
too, the author of inspired Scripture, and his writ- 
ings indicate a perception of the true principles 
of duty and God’s service. Yet a bright morning 
that promised the best thing was soon sullied ; and 
if the noon is brilliant, it shines with a sickly and 
pretentious glare, and not with the clear, full radi- 
ance of the sunlight that shineth more and more 
unto the perfect day. The life of Solomon, in its 
general aspect, as it is portrayed to us in Scripture, 
is sadly like that of a worldling and a voluptuary. 
We do not discover, indeed, that the sense of God 
and his claims ever wholly forsook him ; but if the 
good seed still grew, it was among thorns, so sur- 
rounded with “ cares and pleasures of this life ” as 
to mature no excellent fruit. Luxury and splendor 
blinded his eyes and hardened his heart. The am- 
bition of filling the position of a great Oriental 
monarch took possession of his mind, and seems to 
have become his paramount and overmastering pas- 
sion. “ The lust of the eyes, and the lust of the 
flesh, and the pride of life ” engrossed his soul, and 
left little room in it for graver and higher aspira- 
tions. He must needs imitate the magnificent 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


45 


sovereigns on either side of him, and lack nothing 
in his own case that went to swell the state of the 
kings of Assyria and Egypt. He allied himself to 
paganism for political advantage and factitious honor 
by marrying the daughter of Pharaoh, and by erect- 
ing at Jerusalem a magnificent palace for her accom- 
modation ; and he allowed her, as the most inevita- 
ble consequence, to enjoy the luxury of her own 
superstition, and so heathenism was soon enthroned 
in state in his capital. And together with the 
daughter of Pharaoh of Egypt, King Solomon loved 
many strange women, “ women of the Moabites, 
Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites,” 
and his wives turned away his heart after their 
gods,’' if not to worship them himself, at least to 
provide costly and gorgeous fanes for them, to gratify 
these outlandish women, and countenance and favor 
their worship. Thus soon his domestic life became 
encumbered with an overgrown seraglio, and the 
Mount of Corruption, just outside the walls of 
Jerusalem, became a pantheon, where the idolatries 
of all the neighboring races were honored with cost 
and magnificence. Wealth and power, the means of 
unlimited indulgence, love of luxury and display, 
had intoxicated him, shut out God and spiritual in- 
terest from his soul, and rendered him an idolater, 
or at least an abetter and supporter of idolatry. 
And here the direct testimony of history leaves him 
with all the bright auguries of his early life hidden 
under a dismal eclipse. But there remains a com- 
position of his, written apparently toward the close 


46 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


of his life which opens a door for the hope that at 
evening time there was light in his day. In it he 
recites the experience of his life, how that, after 
gathering around him every means of gratification the 
world could afford, he found all but vanity and vex- 
ation of spirit, “ and that in the awful distortion of 
domestic ties into which his swollen polygamy had 
betrayed him,’’ a woman among ten thousand had he 
not found. And at last the moral of his life and 
experience comes out in the conviction that to “ fear 
God and keep his commandments is the all of man,” 
his whole end, his whole duty, his whole wisdom, 
and his whole happiness. To this better mind then 
he seems to have returned at last, and in it we may 
hope found peace with Him, who “ passeth by the 
transgression ” of the remnant of his heritage, and 
“ retaineth not his anger forever, because he delight- 
eth in mercy.” 

“ Star of the East, how sweet art Thou, 

Seen in life’s early morning sky, 

Ere yet a cloud has dimmed the brow, 

While yet we gaze with childish eye. 

“ Too soon the glare of earthly day 
Buries to us thy brightness keen. 

And we are left to find our way 
By faith and hope in Thee unseen. 

“ What matter if in calm old age 
Our childhood’s star again arise. 

Crowning our lonely pilgrimage 

With all that cheers a wanderer’s eyes ? ” 

In Solomon we think these successive stages are 
discoverable. In the middle stage of his life, in- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


47 


deed, faith and hope became miserably dim ; and the 
star of his youth, when it came again in age, strove 
with a correspondent feebleness and uncertainty. 
He could not rise to the height from which he had 
fallen, or restore the freshness of his first love. The 
weary soul could only lay again with slow and pain- 
ful relapses the foundations of a true morality and 
religion. 

Solomon was the son of David by Bathsheba, 
“ who had been the wife of Urias.” He was not 
the oldest, but one of the younger, if, indeed, he 
was not the very youngest of David’s sons. His 
selection to succeed his father on the throne some 
have supposed to be owing to the influence of 
Bathsheba, the favorite wife. There may have been 
in this preference a desire to make her some amends 
for the wrongs he had done her when she was the 
wife of Urias. But whatever minor considerations 
may have influenced the king, an intimation of the 
divine will, we must believe, chiefly governed his 
choice. The name given him, Solomon, the peaceful 
one, was intended to foreshow his personal character 
and the character of his reign, as well as to point for- 
ward to that “ Prince of Peace,” of whom in this re- 
spect he was typical. Unlike his predecessors, Saul 
and David, Solomon was horn a prince, and grew up 
amidst the elegancies and indulgences of a court and 
a palace. Of his personal history very few events 
are recorded ; indeed, we may say there were very 
few events to record. He had no wars and no in- 
ternal commotions ; and it is war and discord that 


48 


SO VEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


make history. His reign flowed on with a calm and 
even current, marked chiefly by great wealth, pros- 
perity, and magnificence. It was the halcyon time 
of Israel. His father had conquered all the surround- 
ing nations, and he ruled in profound tranquillity 
overall the country between Egypt and the Euphra- 
tes. The great work of his reign was the erection 
of the temple on Mount Zion, for which David 
in his lifetime had amassed much of the needful 
means and materials, a structure which, not for mag- 
nitude but for costliness and splendor, was one of the 
wonderful things of the world. He entered into an 
alliance with Hiram, King of Tyre, and through him 
obtained the aid of Phoenician skill and art in his 
great undertaking; and so carefully and accurately 
were the parts of the edifice prepared beforehand, 
that in putting them together “ there was no sound 
of axe or hammer heard.” Other edifices under his 
passion for magnificence rose to adorn Jerusalem. 
A palace for himself, and one for his Egyptian 
queen, “ the house of the forest of Lebanon,” with 
its magnificent throne of ivory and gold, with six 
lions on either side supporting the arms of the chair 
in which he sat to administer justice, “ Tadmor in 
the wilderness,” on whose splendid ruins travellers 
gaze with wonder to this day, and other cities created 
and adorned by his power, attested the royal build- 
er’s fondness for pomp and luxury. Commerce 
flourished under his patronage. By the port of 
Joppa, on the Mediterranean, his ships went to Tar- 
shish and participated in the rich gains which Tyre, 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


49 


his faithful ally, had drawn from traffic with the 
West. And the ports which he opened on the Red 
Sea gave him access to India and the eastern shore 
of Africa, whence he received stores of gold, and 
many articles of curiosity and value hitherto un- 
known. His ships brought “ gold and silver, ivory 
and apes, and peacocks,” “garments, and armor, and 
spices, horses, and mules.” “ Silver was in Jerusa- 
lem as stones, and cedars as the sycamore trees that 
were in the vale for abundance.” So King Solo- 
mon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches 
and for wisdom ; for extent of knowledge, for sa- 
gacity, for penetration, for discrimination and govern- 
mental skill. Foreign princes sent ambassadors to 
him, and the Queen of Sheba came to visit him from 
a far country, drawn by the fame of his wisdom and 
his riches, and acknowledged that the half had not 
been told her. For reasons of state he formed 
matrimonial connections with the neighboring kings . 
The heathen wives must be allowed the free exer- 
cise of their respective religions, and the king’s pride 
must make the provision for them sumptuous and 
grand. So “ outlandish ” — that is, according to the 
primitive meaning of the word foreign — “women 
caused him to sin.” Idolatry stood unreproved, and 
even honored, before the eyes of his people. Po- 
lygamy, its attendant evil, grew to a monstrous mag- 
nitude. Yet under its debarring influence he found 
no true domestic enjoyment, no realization of the 
genuine idea of a wife ; but was compelled to say 
that a “ woman” — a true woman, with womanly 
’ 3 


50 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


virtues and utilities — “ among ten thousand he had 
not found.” Yet woman was not in fault, but the 
man. So his life wore on to age, ruffled, indeed, a lit- 
tle toward its close by the turbulence of Jeroboam, 
Avhich was the foreshadowing of coming troubles. 
The vast expenses which his costly works involved 
bore heavily upon the people, and produced the dis- 
content under which the rule of his successor led 
to the disruption of the kingdom. Luxury and un- 
bounded self-indulgence ate out the heart of his 
goodness and corrupted his life ; and it is but an 
uncertain glimmer of light in his closing days that 
saves him from being reckoned among those who 
“ have their portion in this life ” and love “ the true 
riches.” “And the time that Solomon reigned over 
all Israel in Jerusalem was forty years. And Solo- 
mon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the 
city of David his father ; and Rehoboam, his son, 
reigned in his stead.” 

The prosperity of Solomon was his great misfor- 
tune. Not uncommonly is it so. He was born a 
prince, and grew up in unrestrained ease and indul- 
gence. In his early life there was no hardship, no self- 
denial, no struggle ; gratification outran want, and 
assiduity and adulation waited on every wish. What 
knew he of that stern discipline in which firmness and 
steadfastness of principle and conviction are most 
effectually acquired and established? When he 
came to the throne the wealth his father had amassed 
fell into his hands. There were no foreign wars to 
tax his energies, no internal strifes to occupy or dis- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


51 


turb his mind. He had abundant leisure to enjoy 
the good things so profusely furnished to him. His 
enterprises prospered, and riches flowed into him by 
his commercial operations from every quarter. A 
natural taste for beauty and splendor had opportu- 
nity to gratify itself to the utmost extent. Rank, 
wealth, power, in the largest abundance were his. 
His fame was spread abroad, and the voice of admi- 
ration and flattery came to him not only from his 
own subjects, proud of a sovereign that had made 
their country great and raised it to a pinnacle of 
glory among the nations of the world, but from for- 
eign lands. Why should not such a man begin to 
think himself almost a god ? Why should it not be 
with him as he himself says it was : “ Whatsoever 
mine eyes desired I kept not from them. I withheld 
not my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in 
all my labor, and this was my portion of all my 
labor.” Why should he not worship himself, think 
all offerings due tributes to this self-constituted 
divinity, all indulgences and delights lawful exercises 
of his right ? This is not an atmosphere in which 
religion can prosper ; if it do not utterly expire, if it 
continue to live at all, it must move with languid 
pulse and speak with bated breath.” And yet this 
is the condition which men, and even Christian men, 
are wont to think enviable, and strive after as the 
summit of earthly good. Solomon possessed about 
all the elements of worldly pleasure, and he used 
them without stint. And was he happy? Hear his 
testimony: “ I hated life, because the work that is 


52 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


wrought under the sun is grievous unto me : for 
all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” Knowledge, 
riches, rank, power, all were a poor and unsatisfac- 
tory portion. So much for the result in regard to 
this world. And his religion, — what had become of 
that? It had wilted, withered, faded out of sight in 
this unwholesome atmosphere, given place to a self- 
idolatry and a most dangerous leaning toward the 
worship of the gods many that have usurped Jeho- 
vah’s throne. And yet this worldly prosperity and 
fulness it is that we are sadly inclined to aim at and 
labor for in such measure as our circumstances will 
allow, and to glory in and felicitate ourselves upon 
so far as we attain to it. Think you that it can do 
more for us than it did for King Solomon ? or that 
we can escape the snares it spread for his feet ? He 
himself answers with his own monitory question : 
“ What can the man do that cometh after the king ? 
Who can get more good out of life than I ? Who 
better can avoid its manifold seductions? Learn to 
look upon prosperity as the state of peculiar danger, 
then learn where in it to live carefully and warily, to 
“watch and pray,” and “walk hum.bly ” with God. 
There is no truer wisdom for man than that which 
breathes in Agur’s prayer: “Two things have I re- 
quired of thee : deny me them not before I die ; re- 
move far from me vanity and lies ; give me neither 
poverty nor riches ; feed me with food convenient 
for me, lest I be full and deny thee, and say, who is 
the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal, and take the 
name of my God in vain.” For of a truth, “ godliness 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


53 

with contentment is great gain,” the real riches of 
this life. 

Look at Solomon’s fearful perversion of the do- 
mestic relations. This appears both in his polyg- 
amy and in his intermarriage with foreigners and 
idolaters. 

For the first, he had, indeed, ample precedent 
and warrant in the example of the greatest and 
holiest names in the history of the nation, from the 
father of the . faithful down, though never had it 
reached such swollen proportions as it did in him. 
So every social evil grows by continuance. The law 
of God had not as yet declared polygamy unlawful. 
But the original creation of one man and one woman 
clearly enough indicated its contrariety to his mind 
and purpose, and the history of the race had plainly 
shown it to be the fruitful source of domestic infe- 
licity, discord, and debasement. Surely, in the over- 
grown extent it reached in Solomon’s case, its evils 
were not diminished, but, we may well believe, fear- 
fully augmented. ‘‘A woman he had not found,” 
not one worthy of that name, not one to answer to 
that beautiful description of a virtuous woman, 

pronounced in value above all rubies,” which is 
found in the appendix of his Book of Proverbs. It 
is hardly possible, indeed, that a true wife should ex- 
ist in a plurality of wives. Under its baleful influ- 
ence the wife dwindles into the petted toy, or sinks 
into the degraded slave, and can never attain to the 
station of an honored and honorable helper and com- 
panion which God designed her to be ; and the social 


54 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


state from being a family becomes an incongruous 
company of ill-matched souls, that generate in its 
frictions jealousy, rivalry, and hatred. Let us thank 
God that under the Gospel this “ holy estate shines 
forth in its true beauty, and put forth our influence 
to preserve it from the debasements which the reck- 
lessness and unruly wills ” of men are ever threaten- 
ing to bring upon it. 

But the true social economy of life was in Solo- 
mon’s case still farther perverted by his matrimonial 
alliances with foreigners ignorant of the true God and 
^‘strangers from the covenant of promise.” Such 
alliances were expressly forbidden in God’s Word, 
and it was a direct defiance of his prohibition that 
he, whose office it was to be the guardian and main- 
tainer of that Word, lived in open violation of its 
precepts, for pomp and policy. The fruit was the 
introduction of idolatry into his kingdom, to be 
practised with all its gorgeous and seductive rights, 
before the eyes of his people, under his protection 
and patronage. And the progeny of such ill-assort- 
ed matches could hardly fail either to wholly follow 
the religion of the mother, or rest in some mongrel 
compromise, like those Jews of Nehemiah’s days, 
who “ spake half in the speech of Ashdod and half 
in the speech of Israel.” To guard against a mis- 
chief so great, marriages of this character were 
strictly forbidden to the Israelites. Yet Solomon in- 
dulged in them, and they caused him to sin. My 
brethren, although among us there is no open idola- 
try, there is much unbelief and mischief, much un- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


55 


disguised devotion to the world, mlich that under 
decent shapes is really the service of Satan ; the 
relations of life, and none so much as that “ holy 
wedlock,” which is the foundation of them all, are 
sacred things devised of God for our good, and 
quite too solemn and important to be left at the 
mercy of passion, or caprice, or fancy, or policy, or 
worldly gain, or aggrandizement. The apostle’s 
warning has still its force and necessity for us, “ Be 
not unequally yoked together with unbelievers,” nor 
with such as scout at religious obligations, or in gid- 
diness and frivolity of mind slight and disregard 
them. The person so allied comes to be like his 
yoke-fellow, and then the end is death. 


V. 


REHOBOAM. 

So King Eehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem, and reigned : 
for Rehoboam was one and forty years old when he began to reign, 
and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord 
had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And 
his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And he did evil, 
because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. — II. Chronicles 
XII ; 13, 14. 

One incident in the life of Rehoboam, the son 
and successor of Solomon, so overshadows his whole 
history as in a sense to engulf and obscure it, and 
prevent it from receiving any fair and dispassionate 
estimation. And yet, in spite of that great folly, 
which has made his name a proverb of unwisdom, as 
it were, he was, albeit not a godly man or a man of 
firm and elevated principles of action, not without 
ability as a ruler, and in administering the affairs 
of his kingdom he displayed some judgment and 
achieved some creditable success. His mistake at 
the outset was indeed incurable, as mistakes often 
are. Like Esau, “ he found no place for repentance, 
though he sought it carefully .with tears.” But 
when the issue of his error became plain, and was 
confirmed by the decision of God, he submitted to 
it with a manly fortitude, desisting from all mad 
attempts to reverse the determination or set it at 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


57 


defiance, and betook himself, with such skill as a 
man might who had no true inward fear of God 
to guide him, to the work of strengthening his dimin- 
ished realm and promoting its prosperity. For the 
sacred historian says of him, that “ he did wisely, 
and that under his rule in Judah things went well.” 
His policy drew almost all the priesthood into his 
dominions of the nation, and brought in large ac- 
cessions of population from the territory of the re- 
volted tribes ; so that though his country, consisting 
only of the two southern tribes, was inferior in 
extent, and yet more in fertility and natural re- 
sources, it matched well the sister kingdom in the 
north, and during his reign and the reigns of his 
successors, he successfully warded off its enmity. 

He fortified the strongholds and put captains in 
them, and store of victual, and of oil and wine. And 
in every several city he put shields and spears, and 
made them exceeding strong, having Judah and 
Benjamin on his side.” So much he did for exter- 
nal defence. And to preserve internal order and 
tranquillity, and to prevent contention among his 
numerous sons — for it is recorded of him that he 
had twenty-eight — as well as to avert the danger of 
a disputed succession after his death, he separated 
them, “and dispersed all his children throughout all 
the countries of Judah and Benjamin, unto every 
fenced city : and he gave them victual in abun- 
dance.” Surely, here was some good statesmanship 
and political sagacity. And thus it appears that 
Rehoboam, through the great folly with which he 
3 * 


58 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


started in his public career, has left on his fame an 
indelible blot — was not altogether a weak and un- 
prosperous monarch, not altogether a simpleton or a 
trifler, nor altogether unworthy of his birth as the 
son of the wise King Solomon. And it has been 
remarked, as an evidence of shrewdness and saga- 
cious forecast in this king, that the fortresses which 
he built “ were not, as might have been at first sight 
expected, on the northern frontier against the rival 
kingdom,” in the quarter where the danger was 
immediate and manifest, but on the southern and 
western side of the country toward Egypt, whence, 
circumstances having broken the bond which united 
the house of David with the royal family of Egypt 
by a matrimonial tie, and brought about an alliance 
of that power with the new king of the new king- 
dom, a far more formidable danger was not unrea- 
sonably apprehended. This was good warlike 
strategy. 

Rehoboam was the son of Solomon and his suc- 
cessor on the throne, inheriting from him the undi- 
vided sovereignty of the Hebrew race. His mother’s 
name, as our text tells us, was Naamah, an Ammon- 
itess. To this heathen mother — one of the outland- 
ish women tolerated in the idolatry of her native 
country by Solomon, like his other foreign wives, 
whom policy or an affectation of grandeur induced 
him to assemble at Jerusalem in the dark decline 
of his life — and to her influence in his training, and 
indeed to the bad atmosphere of his father’s court, 
thus fatally tainted in the later days of that splendid 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


59 


reign, his faults may reasonably be in no small de- 
gree attributed. There seems to have been a con- 
nection between the house of David and that of the 
kings of Ammon that dated back a considerable dis- 
tance ; and from some obscure intimation, it has 
been conjectured that David’s mother, whose name 
singularly is nowhere given, had previously been 
married to Nahash, the Ammonitish king; and also 
that Zeruiah, who was the mother of Joab and Abi- 
shai and Asahel, and Abigail, who was the mother of 
Amasa, David’s distinguished relatives, who played 
so important a part in his affairs, were the issue of 
this Ammonitish marriage. It accords with this 
supposition that David, during his flight from Saul, 
sought an asylum for his aged parents in the court 
of Ammon, and that he experienced kindness and 
help from the same source when he fled across the 
Jordan from the violence of Absalom. Of this same 
Ammonitish family Solomon married a daughter, 
who was thus his relative by blood, and for her 
accommodation he built an high place for Molech, 
the abomination of the children of Ammon. Mo- 
lech, horrid king, was the god whose cruel worship 
in the valley of Hinnom, right beneath the walls of 
Jerusalem, made Tophet, as the place was called, a 
lively image of hell, and has communicated to it its 
name of Gehenna. Of this Ammonitish idolater 
Rehoboam was the offspring. Rarely does a good 
child come from a bad mother, and it has been well 
remarked that among the kings there is scarcely one 
known to be the son of a foreign and consequently 


6o 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


idolatrous mother who did not fall into idolatry. 
Rehoboam was Solomon’s favorite son, and se- 
lected out of his numerous progeny to be his suc- 
cessor on the throne ; and at the death of his father 
he entered upon the grand inheritance that fell to 
him without visible opposition, although those seeds 
of discontent and disaffection were lying hidden in 
the bosom of the state which were soon to grow up 
into revolt and dismemberment. Wise management 
at this critical juncture might have stifled and de- 
stroyed them. But at this very point Rehoboam’s 
wisdom failed him. The blunder was fatal. The 
breach then made was never after healed. 

The way to the disruption was paved in his father’s 
lifetime. The closing years of Solomon’s reign 
were oppressive, and the people had grown restive 
and unquiet under the burdens that rested heavily 
upon them. A change in the administration offered 
an inviting opportunity to seek redress of their griev- 
ances. The extensive and costly erections, and the 
sumptuousness of his vast domestic establishment, 
had not been met by the gains of his wide-spread 
and lucrative commerce. Taxes had impoverished 
the country and weighed heavily on its people. Now 
that the charm of his great name was withdrawn, 
the smothered discontent burst forth and loudly de- 
manded a hearing. The nation rose up with one 
voice to ask for a reduction of their burdens and a 
relief of their grievances, with Jeroboam at their 
head, who was smarting under a sense of wrongs of 
his own, as well as swelling with the ambition engen- 


. SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 6i 

dered by a consciousness of ability ; they came to 
Rehoboam at Shechem, where Israel had come to 
make him king, and said, “Thy father made our 
yoke grievous: Now, therefore, make the grievous 
service of thy father and his heavy yoke which he 
put upon us lighter, and we will serve thee.” After 
promising them an answer at the end of three days. 
King Rehoboam consulted with the old men that 
stood before Solomon, his father, while he yet lived, 
and said, “ How do ye advise that I may answer this 
people? And they spake unto him saying. If thou 
wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and 
speak good words to them, then they will be thy 
servants forever.” These were wise men, men of 
experience and of judgment. They knew the tem- 
per of the nation and sympathized with it. They 
understood the power of gentleness and the efficacy 
of timely concession. “ The tongue of the wise 
is health ; ” “a soft answer turneth away wrath,” 
and “a soft tongue breaketh the bone.” Well had 
it been for Rehoboam if he had listened to this ju- 
dicious counsel. But there were others about the 
throne whose counsel was not wise, men who told 
him that the course prepared by him was mean and 
cowardly and unworthy of a king — the weak device 
of timid old men whose courage and energy were 
unstrung by age. These young men, who had grown 
up with him, advised force, the vigorous assertion 
of prerogative, the high-handed exertion of author- 
ity, to crush dissatisfaction by power, and silence 
complaint by greater exactions ; to be like Pharaoh 


62 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. • 


to their ancestors, require the tale of bricks and 
withhold the straw. Such counsels have overthrown 
many a tottering tyranny, and will destroy them all 
in the end. But they are pleasant and flattering to 
the ears of power ; and where power is, there are 
sure to be the sycophants to compliment it, and 
oftentimes to ruin it. And so, at the end of three 
days, Rehoboam pursued the ruinous behest of his 
companions, and said to the people, “ My father 
made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke : 
my father chastised you with whips, and I wfll chas- 
tise you with scorpions.” “ It was of the Lord,” 
the historian tells us, a judicial blindness sent upon 
the house of David to punish it for its sins. Much 
of this judicial blindness there is in the world which 
men do not always recognize, in nations, in individ- 
uals, sent too often to chastise and destroy some 
form of oppression. The blow was struck and it was 
fatal. “To your tents, O Israel: now see to thine 
own house, David,” was the cry. The ten northern 
tribes revolted and made Jeroboam their king. The 
largest and richest portion of the territory was sent 
away from David’s sceptre. A rival throne and 
temple and hierarchy looked defiance at Jerusalem 
from the hills of Ephraim. Rehoboam would fain 
have gone to war to recover his lost possessions, but 
the Lord forbade him. “ Ye shall not go up, nor 
fight against your brethren the children .of Israel: 
return every man to his house ; for this thing is of 
me.” It was a bloodless revolution. But one man, 
‘Adoram,” who was over the tribute, called else- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


63 

where “Adoniram,” in a vain attempt to execute 
his office in Jeroboam’s dominions, fell a victim to 
popular violence. Rehoboam henceforward acqui- 
esced in his loss. At first he maintained the wor- 
ship of God in its purity, and for three years they 
walked in the ways of David and Solomon, but 
later “ he did evil, because he prepared not his heart 
to seek the Lord.” A religion that is merely educa- 
tional and external has no life and little power of 
continuance. On the whole, however, Rehoboam 
was an expert and successful sovereign. He had one 
war with Shishak, king of Egypt, and was worsted 
in it. The old alliance was broken. Perhaps it was 
because Solomon, in designating his successor, pre- 
ferred the son of his Ammonitish wife before the 
children of the Egyptian princess whom he had 
married. Rehoboam was defeated in the conflict, 
and in the place of the golden shields which Solo- 
mon had hung up in the splendid porch of the Tern 
pie, of which Shishak robbed him, he put brazen 
shields, a significant token of a decline from a golden 
age to an age of brass. He lived to the age of fifty- 
eight. “ And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and 
was buried in the city of David, and Abijah his son 
reigned in his stead.” 

Not to detain you longer with the historical de- 
tails of this king’s life, I will now proceed to present 
to your consideration some of the principal points 
of instruction which it seems to me to contain. 

And first it has a lesson for us in regard to the 
use and employment of human counsels. The capi- 


64 


SOVEREIGNS OE JUDAH. 


tal error of Rehoboam’s life lay in his listening to 
bad advice, and the error was irreparable. He did 
not hearken to the sober and judicious recommen- 
dations of the grave and considerate men that had 
stood around the throne of his father, but to the 
hasty judgments of younger men, who sought rather 
to please than to advantage him, to make them- 
selves acceptable to him by flattering his vanity 
rather than useful, by guiding him aright ; whose 
own opinions indeed were crude and superficial, and 
of little practical value ; and so he lost the better 
half of his kingdom, and transmitted an impover- 
ished sceptre to all his posterity. Here are both 
warning and direction for us ; the Scriptures do not 
undervalue advice, they give no countenance to that 
headstrong sinfulness and self-sufficiency that re- 
fuses to ask counsel, and rushes on its way without 
regard to timely admonition and instruction. It 
says to us, “ In the multitude of counsellors there is 
safety.” “ With good advice make war.” “As an ear- 
ring of gold and an ornament of fine gold, so is a 
wise reprover upon an obedient ear.” “The way of 
a fool is right in his own eyes, but he that hearkeneth 
unto counsel is wise.” “ Whoso loveth instruction 
loveth knowledge, but he that hateth reproof is brut- 
ish.” These are specimens of a numerous class of 
texts. The point is one on which Scripture is spe- 
cially plain and emphatic. It was not Rehoboam’s 
fault that he took advice in the untried and difficult 
art of ruling ; but that he took bad advice, that he 
forsook the obvious sources of sound prudence and 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


65 


policy, and resorted to those whose opinions pre- 
sented no promise of valuable aid ; that he left the 
counsel of those whom experience had made sage 
in the knowledge of men, and the great art of influ- 
encing and controlling them, for that of those who 
enjoyed no advantage over himself in this respect, 
w'ho themselves had never made trial of the work 
which they were invited to criticise, and who would 
be more likely to say what would please him and 
secure his favor than advance his success and well- 
being. Counsel is good ; any man that thinks he 
does not need it is a fool or worse. “ Seest thou a 
man that is wise in his own conceit ? there is more 
hope of a fool than of him.'’ Counsel in order to 
be good must come from a reliable source, a source 
entitled to respect and confidence, where there is 
information, where there is integrity, where there is 
honesty of purpose, where there is unselfish and 
unbiassed regard to truth and to our real good. 
Such counsel may not always be palatable, not such 
as we like or hope for, but in the end we shall either 
be thankful that we followed it or wish that we 
had. “ He that rebuketh a man shall often find 
more favor than he that flattereth with his lips.” 
There is little doubt that Rehoboam soon thought 
better of his father’s old friends than of his own fa- 
vorite companions. To go to another to think for us, 
simply because we are too indolent to think for our- 
selves, or wish to throw off the responsibility of de- 
ciding by quoting a name, is not wisdom. Nor is it 
wisdom to ask another’s opinion, simply for the pur- 


66 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


pose of being confirmed in some purpose of our own 
to which we are strongly inclined or on which we 
are determined already, and pick out our advisers 
with reference to that result. Very likely this was 
Rehoboam’s case. He did not wish to diminish his 
expenses, or curtail anything of his father’s luxury, 
and he was predisposed in favor of opinions that 
would sustain him in this disinclination. ‘‘The 
wish was father to the thought.” The previo us bias 
gave a weight to the counsel which it had not in 
itself. We are prone to think that wise which we 
like. If we would have counsel that is good for 
anything, we must seek it where there is real knowl- 
edge, and where we can look for an honest and im- 
partial opinion, and with a sincere purpose to “ prove 
all things ” and “ hold fast that which is good. ” There 
will always be enough ready to tell us what is pleas- 
ing, and who very likely have ends of their own to 
gain by it. These young courtiers desired to bask 
in the royal favor, to live on court bounty, a nd gain 
office and place. Their object was not Reho boam’s 
good, but their own. The young especially, but all 
of us in a good degree, are exposed to this d anger. 
Young men will listen to other young men, and 
adopt their maxims, to “ walk in the ways of their 
heart, and in the sight of their eyes,” while they 
will not obey their father’s commandmen t, and for- 
sake the law of their mother, scouting the m as anti- 
quated, narrow, cramping, illiberal, and so make 
shipwreck of all that is good in this life, and of all we 
hope for in another. Alas ! how many such wrecks 


SOVEREIGJVS OF JUDAH. 


67 

bestrew the shores ! There are always sources of 
good counsel in society, and they are easily dis- 
cerned. Be not so conceited as to contemn all 
counsel. Be not so foolish as to seek it where it 
is not to be found. 

Again, we see the irreparable mischief of a wrong 
choice. When Rehoboam preferred the advice of 
the young men, he took a step which he could never 
afterwards retrace, whose mischief admitted of no 
remedy. Seventeen years he lived and reigned, 
but he did nothing toward retrieving his mistake. 
He could not get back his lost dominions, he could 
not recover his alienated people. He could never 
be king of Israel. Another bore that title. Jero- 
boam dwelt in Shechem, the beautiful home of his 
fathers, and from Bethel, almost in sight of his cap- 
itol, the calf challenged its rival on Mount Zion, 
and allj because of a determination formed perhaps 
in an instant, and of words which it took but a mo- 
ment to utter. There are crises in the lives of na- 
tions and of men on which their future course and 
character depend, and they are usually compressed 
into very narrow limits. A moment, and it is an 
even chance whether we take one course or another; 
another moment, and the decision is made which 
can never be reversed, or its consequences averted. 
We cannot go back to the point of divergence and 
revise the determination. It is made and cannot be 
unmade. We must accept the life it entails upon 
us, and make the best of it that we can. Such crises 
run all through life, but they are especially impor- 


68 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


tant when the young are setting out on their course 
of independent action, during their path in life, or 
when some serious change in our condition is placed 
before us. Then a step taken can never be taken 
back ; and if it be a wrong step, to the end of our 
life we must vainly sigh. Oh, that I had not done 
this ! Oh, that I had done that ! But Esau’s tears 
would not bring back his birthright, and ours will 
not. Acts are solemn things, specially acts in mo- 
mentous junctures. And yet hpw carelessly men act, 
with how little reflection or forethought, on a mo- 
mentary impulse, in obedience to a passing thought, 
a sudden inclination or desire! Life is too serious 
a thing for men to treat it so heedlessly. Act when 
you are called to act — and act ofttimes you must, 
there is no alternative — with deliberation, with calm- 
ness, with such wise calculation as you can command, 
with such judicious counsel as you can call to your 
aid, above all looking to God by earnest prayer. 
One of our Lord’s titles is ‘‘ Counsellor.” “ If any 
man lack wisdom let him ask of God, who giveth to 
every man liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall 
be given him.” 

Finally, let us see what was after all Rehoboam’s 
fundamental defect. He had no true religion. He 
was the maintainer, to be sure, of God’s true wor- 
ship, in opposition to the idolatrous form into which 
Jeroboam debased it, and he is not directly called 
an idolater anywhere. For the first three years of his 
reign his people “ walked in the way of David and 
of Solomon,” and doubtless he walked in it with 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAN 


69 

them. But when he had established the kingdom, 
and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of 
the Lord, and all Israel with him ; and it is dis- 
tinctly said of him that he did evil because he 
prepared not his heart to seek God.” His “ heart 
was not right in the sight of God,” and without this 
all was ‘‘sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.” 
There was no religion of the heart ; and without 
this, formality, ritualism, orthodoxy, exact defini- 
tions of faith, solemn respect for sacraments, zeal- 
ous defence and assertion of the truth against 
errorists, schismatics, and unbelievers avail nothing. 
They may deceive the man. He may think he is 
religious. The Athenians, St. Paul said, were very 
religious. So they were in a sense. The Pharisees 
were the religious party of our Lord’s day, and yet 
he called them a “ generation of vipers.” The great 
question with you, my brethren, is not whether you 
come here, and are decorous in your worship, and 
go to the Lord’s Table, and give alms of your goods, 
and maintain a reputable conversation among men ; 
but whether you are new creatures in Christ Jesus, 
whether as lost sinners you have come in faith and 
penitence to his cross for pardon, whether in hu- 
mility and earnestness you are seeking continually 
the Spirit of Christ to dwell in you and make you 
alive unto God, and whether that blessed work is 
begun and going on in your souls which in its issue 
will make you meet for glory. Holiness is an inward 
thing, for which nothing outward can be a substitute, 
and without holiness no man shall see the Lord, 


VI. 


ABIJAH. 

Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam began A-bijah to 
reign over Judah. — II. Chronicles xiii ; i. 

Abijah was the son of Rehoboam, and his suc- 
cessor on the throne of Judah. His reign was short, 
for it lasted but three years, and he was one of the 
evil kings of Judah; for it is recorded of him that 
“he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had 
done before him, and his heart was not perfect with 
the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father.” 
For David’s sake, therefore, and not for his own, 
was his throne maintained, and his royal rights de- 
fended in his continual conflicts with his neighbor, 
J eroboam, for it is recorded of him that there was 
war between Jeroboam and Rehoboam all his days. 
The war of his father’s time continued through his ; 
and so, though Rehoboam was no worse, he yet 
warred with Jeroboam in the person of his heir; and 
of Abijah it is said, that “ there was war between 
Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life.” 
An evil inheritance this for a father to transmit to a 
son, a heritage of feud and enmity and strife ; yet it 
is an illustrious legacy, if the contest be waged for 
right and truth and honor. So it seems to have 
been in this case on Abijah’s part, at least in the 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


71 


main ; but in the course of time its prolongation, 
when it was no longer necessary and useful, became 
both impolitic and wicked. And so we shall see 
Jehosaphat, Abijah’s grandson, wisely judged. In 
this war God gave Abijah victory, but, as the sacred 
historian is careful to tell us, not for his own sake. 
He was wicked after the fashion of his father : “ Nev- 
ertheless for David’s sake did the Lord his God 
give him a lamp in Jerusalem to set up his son after 
him, and to establish Jerusalem: because David did 
that which was . right in the eyes of the Lord, and 
turned not aside from anything that he commanded 
him all the days of his life, save only in the matter 
of Uriah the Hittite.” As Rehoboam’s was a two- 
sided life, we have found reason to think so seems 
to have been his son Abijah’s. There was little in 
his short reign of importance to record ; but there 
was in it one memorable incident, and in this he 
manifested manly heroism, and an appearance cer- 
tainly of religious faith, whatever may have been his 
general religious character. This ambiguity proba- 
bly finds its solution in his descent. His mother, 
we are told, was the daughter of Absalom, David’s 
rebellious son, more strictly, it might seem, his grand- 
daughter. The author of the Chronicles calls her 
the daughter of Uriel, of Gibeah. Uriel had mar- 
ried Tamar, the daughter of Absalom, and his only 
surviving child. And Absalom was the son of David 
by Maachah, daughter of the king of Geshur, from 
whom the name descended to the wife of Reho- 
boam, and mother of Abijah. And with the name 


72 


SOVEREIGN’S OF JUDAH. 


had come, there seems reason to believe, also the 
heathen taint which this first importation of Gen- 
tile blood into the royal stock had brought with it. 
The turbulent character and wild acts of Absalom 
may have been the results of this extraction and of 
maternal training ; and in Geshur, at the court of 
his grandfather, there he took refuge after the mur- 
der of his brother Amnon. His daughter Tamar, 
who bore the name of his injured sister, was the 
mother of Maachah, Rehoboam’s favorite queen and 
Abijah’s mother. Rehoboam loved Maachah above 
all his wives and concubines ; and it is probable, that 
through her dominant influence the crown was de- 
vised to Abijah in preference to his other children. 
The influence she possessed in her husband’s court 
she preserved during the short reign of her son ; and 
it continued in that of her grandson Asa, who at 
last broke the fatal spell, and with a resolute hand 
rescued the kingdom from its mischievous power . 
He removed her from being queen, we are told, be- 
cause “ she had made an idol in a grove ; and Asa cut 
down her idol and burnt it at the brook Kidron.” 
Idolatry, then, and its attendant abominations were 
tolerated, if not patronized and practised, by Abi- 
jah ; and this corrupt element in his life was enough 
to neutralize and render valueless the sounder re- 
ligious convictions and sentiments which at times 
wrought in his actions. With the wild, half heathen 
blood of Absalom, half a Geshurite, running in his 
veins, and the pernicious example and influence of 
an ambitious and unprincipled queen mother, the 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


73 


practise!* and patroness of some foul and sensual 
form of paganism in his court, it is easy to see how, 
with a belief in the God of Israel and occasional 
bursts of devotion when circumstances called them 
forth, this prince is justly described as having 
“ walked in all the sins of his father,” who was led 
astray in like manner, “which he had done before 
him, so tliat his heart was not perfect,” that is, 
whole, consistent, single, “ with the Lord his God, 
as the heart of David his father.” It was the old 
attempt to serve two masters, which no amount of 
failure will ever persuade men to forego. He would 
fain combine the service of Jehovah with his moth- 
er’s ancestral heathenism, and side by side maintain 
the worship of God on Mount Zion, and the obscene 
filthy rites of a pagan idol on some neighboring emi- 
nence ; and thus be like the remnant of the ten 
tribes in a later age, who “ feared the Lord and 
served other gods.” The result was a mongrel re- 
ligion without cohesion or consistency. “ Their heart 
was not whole with Him, neither continued they 
steadfast in his covenant.” “ Their heart is divided , 
now shall he be found faulty.” His was not a per- 
fect heart, but a heart weakened and dissipated by a 
double allegiance. The powers of his heart were not 
united to fear God’s name, but scattered and con- 
fused in the vicious compromise of an attempt to get 
off with a half service. Such service has no spiritual 
value. It is not that “true and laudable service” 
which God demands, and in the great interest of the 
soul’s final salvation it is rejected as worthless. 

4 


74 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


And yet, at least, in one great occasion of Abi- 
jah’s life, the better side of his religion came out 
speciously and even illustriously ; and we hear him 
under its influence uttering noble thoughts in noble 
words. It is the only event of moment in the brief 
story of his reign. An exigency arose which called 
into action the religious convictions of his mind, 
and they acted for the time with vigor and success. 
Abijah had inherited the war with Jeroboam along 
with his father’s throne, as we have seen. It seems 
to have become, indeed, on the part of Abijah’s 
kingdom, a war of self-defence. Jeroboam, not con- 
tent with dominion over the ten tribes, aimed to 
reduce the remaining two under his sceptre, to ex- 
terminate the family of David, and rear on the ruins 
of the true Mosaic economy the worship of the 
calves as the genuine symbols of the God of Israel. 
It was a struggle for existence, a strife to determine 
whether God’s chosen people should be given up to 
apostatize from him, and an idolatrous and insolent 
schism be allowed to swallow up and appropriate to 
itself the Church of God ; and it was Abijah’s lot, 
with his crude and imperfect religious ideas, to be 
the Church’s champion in the crisis, and lead the 
sacramental host of God’s elect, in its battle with 
sin, Satan, and death. And it is recorded to his 
honor, that he rose to the demands of the occasion, 
and entering into the spirit of his position for the 
time without reserve, became not only the valiant 
leader, but the victorious deliverer of his people. 
Abijah set the battle in array with an army of val- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


75 


iant men of war, even four hundred thousand chosen 
men ; Jeroboam also set the battle in array against 
him with eight hundred thousand chosen men, being 
mighty men of valor. The numbers are so enor- 
mous, that it has been supposed that some error has 
crept into the text at some time in the process of 
transcription. There were at any rate huge masses 
of men, and in their dread arbitrament the fate of 
the Church stood trembling. It made Abijah re- 
ligious for the occasion. The better convictions of 
his soul gained the mastery, and swayed over him a 
temporary control. To inspirit his troops for the 
fight, he addressed their adversaries with words of 
noble eloquence. We have not room for his whole 
speech ; we must content ourselves with a few ex- 
tracts : ‘‘ And Abijah stood up upon Mount Zema- 
raim, and said, Hear me thou Jeroboam, and all Israel ; 
ought ye not to know that the Lord God of Israel 
gave the kingdom over Israel to David forever, even 
to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt (that is an 
indestructible, perpetual grant). “And now ye think 
to withstand the kingdom of the Lord in the hands 
of the sons of David ; and ye be a great multitude, and 
there are with you golden calves which Jeroboam 
made you for gods. And behold, God himself is with 
us for our captain, and his priests with sounding 
trumpets to cry alarm against you. O children of 
Israel, fight ye not against the Lord God of your fath- 
ers ; for ye shall not prosper.” With the fearful odds 
of double numbers against him, in the strength of 
faith, for the moment shaking off his clogging incum- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


76 

brances, he courageously attacked the enemy, and 
achieved a signal triumph. “And when Judah 
looked back, behold, the battle was before and be- 
hind : and they cried unto the Lord, and the priests 
sounded with the trumpets. Then the men of 
Judah gave a shout: and as the men of Judah 
shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jero- 
boam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah." 
“ And Abijah and his people slew them with a 
great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel 
five hundred thousand chosen men." Thus the 
children of Israel were brought under at that time, 
and the children of Judah prevailed, because they 
relied upon the Lord God of their fathers. “Nei- 
ther did Jeroboam recover strength again in the 
days of Abijah : and the Lord struck him, and he 
died." Yet this brilliant achievement is but an 
episode or interlude in his life, the exception and 
not the general stamp of his conduct. And so, 
though it stands recorded of him that “ he waxed 
mighty," and had many wives and numerous chil- 
dren, the summary of his life and reign, in the infal- 
lible words of the Holy Ghost, is only this, “that he 
walked in the sins of his father," and “ his heart 
was not perfect," not upright, not consistent and 
harmonious with the Lord his God. 

It follows in the way of warning from the case 
of Abijah, that religious belief and zeal, operating 
irregularly and upon occasions, and going out then 
into correspondent words and acts, may not be 
religion, and that they may not secure God’s favor, 


. SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


77 


nor the salvation of the soul. True religion is a 
principle that seasons the whole life, and puts away 
all forms of wickedness, and works equably and 
habitually in all the varying conditions and occa- 
sions of our earthly being. It will not be the com- 
panion of an idolatry, or divide the possession of 
a man with the world and the devil, and only be 
allowed to assert its supremacy, and speak out in 
full free tones in special emergencies. Such seems 
to have been Abijah’s religion, and herein it proves 
its spuriousness, and bids us to take warning. There 
is much religion of this sort now. At times it is 
very specious. It speaks now and then loudly 
and positively, and acts energetically, and by its 
demonstrations of fervor quite puts to shame qui- 
eter piety. But at ordinary times it is languid 
and lukewarm, puts on very dubious appearances, 
gives few signs of interest and activity, and is so 
mixed up with different descriptions of worldliness 
and habits of unsanctified indulgence, if not fla- 
grant sin, that it affords small evidence of life and 
reality. And yet it is to be feared that on such 
grounds not a few rest their pretensions to a reli- 
gious character, and whatever hope they have of 
attaining eternal life. They are religious at times, 
and then perhaps very religious, in some great exi- 
gencies, when called to act some important part or 
fill some important position, or under the contagion 
of .sympathy, when contact with others kindles the 
smouldering spark of religious feeling into bright- 
ness. But at other times they are indevout and 


78 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


careless, they countenance the idolatries of the 
world by bestowing upon them no marks of disap- 
proval, and are themselves idolaters in their deep 
and undisguised immersion in temporal interest. If 
a host comes to do battle, they will awake and put 
on armor ; but in time of quiet they are in the ene- 
my’s camp, quite at home, there trafficking and mak- 
ing merry. And yet, because at times they feel re- 
ligiously, and can, and in all sincerity on one occa- 
sion make a religious speech, as Abijah did, they 
think themselves religious, and the wide spaces of 
deadness and vanity which intervene are overlooked 
and not counted in the estimate of their spiritual 
condition. Yet the religious fits are the exception, 
and the chief part of their lives is occupied by the 
far broader tract of serving “ divers lusts and pleas- 
ures.” And all the high religious feeling, and 
speech, and action which in spots is embroidered 
on the dull ground of their idolatry will never save 
them from being classed with those “ who have their 
portion in this life,” who “ walk after the course of 
this world,” and “ whose hearts are not right in the 
sight of the Lord.” Abijah was sincere and for 
the time out-spoken and ardent in his profession of 
zeal for God ; but his religion was a religion of oc- 
casions, and like the early dew it went away. Oc- 
casional religion is worthless. 

And again, we are admonished, in the case of Abi- 
jah, that prominent place and distinguished service 
in the Church of God are not saving religion. These 
he had very strikingly, and yet he walked in his 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


79 


father’s wicked way, and his heart was not perfect, 
not sound and whole toward the God of Israel. 
He was the chief person in the Church by virtue of 
his kingly dignity ; and in the hour of her jeopardy 
he did exploits, and accomplished her deliverance 
rfiarvelously. Yet, in it, he was not of it, but paid 
homage to idols, and his heart was not right in the 
sight of God. We are not let into Abijah’s thoughts, 
but we can fancy that the memory of his great act 
dwelt much in his mind during the residue of his life, 
and went far to persuade him that it would be well 
with him at the last. Such delusions, it is to be 
feared, are not uncommon. The accident of birth, 
as men say, had made him king of Israel. The 
honors of David’s line were concentrated in his per- 
son. He was the highest in rank, and the mighti- 
est in power of any man in the nation, the nation 
that was the Church of God. He had a pride in the 
national religion, though he suffered it to be sadly 
debased and alloyed in himself and in his people. 
To defend it when assaulted was the instinct of his 
birth. The honor of a king and the patriotism of 
an Israelite required it at his hands, and he met 
the call bravely and cheerfully. Not David before 
Goliath, or Judas Maccabeus against the host of 
Epiphanes, were heartier or more resolute. And 
yet, this religion for which he was fighting, and ut- 
tering bold and eloquent words had no vital hold 
upon his soul. Beware, my brethren, that in this 
regard you do not mistake the shadow for the sub- 
stance. The religion of position or circumstances, 


8o 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


whatever demonstrations in word or act it may call 
forth from us, may be utterly hollow, and have lit- 
tle relation to the things that accompany salvation 
beyond an outward alliance, wealth, or office, or 
some special conjunction of circumstances which 
bring us into prominent place in the things of God, 
while yet our hearts remain unchanged and unsanc- 
tified, and many motives beside a living faith may 
make us bear ourselves well in our station. Abijah 
on Mount Zemaraim, fighting for God nobly and 
successfully, and yet setting up his idols in his heart, 
is a solemn and profitable object of contemplation 
for us. A large giver may not be saved, a ready 
talker may not be saved, an earnest worker may 
not be saved, ministers may not be saved, nor wise 
and able champions of the faith, nor liberal and ac- 
tive laymen. There is no buying heaven in this 
way. We must put away our idols and give our 
hearts truly to God, and render to him a whole, a 
true-hearted, an undivided service. There must be 
no Queen Maachah, whose idols we countenance and 
help her to serve. The religion of place is worth 
nothing. 

And finally see what honor God puts upon ser- 
vice even in such poor specimens of it as Abijah’s. 
Religion is so precious in his eyes that any earnest- 
ness and zeal and endeavor in its behalf, though 
it be superficial and is not serving, shall have its 
reward. God helped Abijah when he took up for 
God, and made him victorious, and covered him 
with the glory of a victor ; and that was the wages 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


8i 


of his work. So when the wicked Ahab humbled 
himself, though the humiliation reached not to any 
true change of character, God said, “ Seest thou how 
Ahab humbleth himself? I will not bring the evil 
in his days.” Nothing done for Him that has in 
it a particle of sincerity shall go unrequited. All 
service, though it be not spiritual enough to save 
the soul, has generous remuneration. And how 
encouraging is this ! If shadows and imitations, 
that are not merely mechanical, but have a little 
life in them, though of an inferior sort, receive a 
recompense of success and honor, what shall be the 
reward of true service? Oh, what a munificent Lord 
is this that we are invited to serve ! Oh, if his good- 
ness so overflows, how sure we ought to be that the 
recompense of a real service, such service as a living 
faith in Jesus prompts and produces, will be abun- 
dant above all we can ask or think ! — an hundred-fold 
in this world, and in the world to come life everlast- 
ing ! Such a master asks for our service to-day. 
There is no investment in the universe so gainful 
as this, no other service so able to pay us large and 
overflowing interest. If any one will give a cup of 
cold water only with a true and loving heart, he 
shall not lose his reward. 


4 ' 


VII. 


ASA. 

And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did 
David his father. — I. Kings xv: ii. i 

Asa is the first of the kings of the line of Solo- 
mon of whom the Scriptures speak in terms of 
unequivocal praise. He was like David ; no greater 
compliment could be paid to his memory. It is 
noticeable how, through all this history, David is 
the standard of good, as Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, 
is the standard of evil. David was true to the wor- 
ship of the true God ; and men who came after him 
are commended according as they are like him in this 
respect, although they are like him also in having 
faults and errors. If a man’s heart is right in the 
sight of God, and the general tenor of his life con- 
formed to its dictates, his misdoings are exceptions, 
and though they mar, do not efface his goodness. But 
if he have virtues, and do some worthy deeds, and 
his heart is not right, he is still an evil man. The 
Scriptures fearlessly put down the sins of good men, 
and the worthy acts of bad men, and these sum up 
the estimate of the man with firmness and authority. 
Herein is inspiration. Here is the finger of God. 
“ The Lord knoweth them that are his,” and who 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


83 


they are that be will own as his “ in the day when he 
shall make up his jewels,” and he draws with accu- 
racy and decision that line of demarcation between 
the righteous and the wicked, which we are not 
competent to draw. In man it is presumption ; in 
God simply omniscience. In this history God ante- 
dates the Judgment. The facts are stated, and the 
verdict is given with an unfaltering confidence ; what 
they did that was good, and what they did that was 
evil are put down with an even hand, with a perfect 
impartiality and candor. The delineation is col- 
orless and passionless, clear as crystal, tinctured 
neither by love nor hate, and then what God thinks 
of the man at last is put down, and there is no ap- 
peal, no room for questioning or debate. This his- 
tory is divine history, God’s Word, and it is “ writ- 
ten for our learning.” 

An item of this divine and instructive history we 
have in its brief sketch of Asa, the first king of the 
Davidic line of whom, as I have said before, it 
speaks in terms of decided commendation. And yet 
before it is done with him, it tells of a fault that he 
committed, and that a great one, and one that indi- 
cates a deplorable weakness of faith. On a trying 
occasion his faith in God proved insufficient. He 
resorted to worldly policy. He hired the help of a 
heathen neighbor, the powerful king of Syria even 
with the treasures of the house of the Lord, diverted 
from their sacred purpose to this worldly use, to 
defend himself against the attacks of the succes- 
sor of Jeroboam] in the kingdom of the ten tribes. 


84 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


This was political wisdom, but it was spiritual folly. 
Yet for the time it prospered. By the aid of this 
alliance he was successful, and triumphed in the 
war. It was a costly triumph, however, and, as all 
worldly policy in the Church does, entailed mischiefs 
that far overbalanced the gain. He set open a door 
to the heathen that could never be shut. He ex- 
cited a cupidity in them that was satisfied with 
nothing but conquest. He provided an instrument 
which, when the nation’s iniquity was full, God used 
to destroy it. In this respect his conduct contrasts 
unfavorably with that of his less religious father 
Abijah in like circumstances, who stood grandly up as 
the champion of his kingdom in danger, and single- 
handed achieved a signal victory. Yet of Abijah it 
is said that “ he walked in all the sins of his father,” 
and his heart was not perfect, not sound and up- 
right with the Lord his God ; while of Asa it is 
recorded that “ he did that which was right in the 
sight of the Lord.” The Lord drew the line, and it 
was an infallible line ; men cannot draw such lines. 
Courage and manhood and patriotism are one thing, 
piety is another ; man cannot always distinguish 
them, God can. He knows the difference between 
blemished goodness and specious irreligion. The 
book that makes these discriminations is the Bible, 
God’s book, and not man’s. Its utterances concern- 
ing men are foretokenings of the Day of Judgment. 

To look now a little more particularly into the 
history of this king, and hold up its prominent 
points more distinctly to view: The heathen or 


SOVEI^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


85 


idolatrous party in the kingdom had flourished under 
the patronage of Queen Maachah, the widow of Reho- 
boam, the heathen daughter of the king of Geshur, 
during the reign of her son Abijah. That prince, 
though on the one great occasion of his brief reign 
he had acted and spoken as it became the ruler of 
God’s people, had not depth and vigor of religious 
conviction enough to withstand her evil influence, 
but countenanced if he did not participate in it. 
Asa, his son, with a purer and more earnest relig- 
ious faith, “ broke the fatal spell.” “ Maachah” the 
mother, more accurately as the history shows, the 
grandmother of Asa the king, he removed from be- 
ing queen, because she “made an idol in a grove.” 
The obscene wooden image w'hich it contained 
was committed to the flames in the valley of the 
Kidron. The polygamy of the court, which had 
lasted through both the preceding reigns, ceased, 
and the worship of the foreign divinities was for- 
bidden. The achievement, to give it greater force 
and solemnity, was equalized by a vow or treaty, 
as if by a violent effort to bind the people to their 
better thoughts. This “ solemn league and cove- 
nant” seems to have been the pattern of similar 
engagements in later days, not always as pure in 
principle as that whose sanction they claim. “ They 
gathered themselves together fn the fifteenth year 
of the reign of Asa.” “And they entered into a 
covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers, 
with all their heart and with all their soul.” 
“And they sware unto the Lord with a loud voice, 


86 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with 
cornets. And all Judah rejoiced at the oath : for 
they had sworn with all their heart, and sought 
him with their whole desire; and he was found of 
them : and the Lord gave them rest round about.” 

Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes 
of the Lord his God : for he took away the altars of 
the strange gods, and the high places, and brake 
down the images, and cut down the groves : and 
commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their 
fathers, and to do the law and the commandment.” 
This remarkable reformation was followed by an 
equally remarkable prosperity. “The land had rest, 
and he had no war in those years, because the Lord 
had given him rest.” Yet this period of repose was 
wisely employed in strengthening the defences of his 
kingdom, by the erection of fortresses, and the equip- 
ment and discipline of an army. The tranquillity of 
the country had been previously broken by the at- 
tack of a Cushite tribe. His preparation proved 
effectual. Yet then not on man, or man’s resources 
did he rely, but piously resorted to God for help. 
“ And Asa cried to the Lord his God, and said, Lord, 
it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many 
or with them that have no power ; help us, O Lord, 
our God, for we rest on thee, and in thy name we 
go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our 
God ; let not man prevail against thee.” And the 
Lord smote the enemy and he fled. It was on this 
occasion that the solemn covenant mentioned before 
was consummated, under the earnest exhortation and 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


87 


advice of the prophet Azariah, the son of Oded : 

Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin, 
The Lord is with you, while ye be with him ; and if 
ye seek him, he will be found of you ; but if ye for- 
sake him, he will forsake you. Now for a long sea- 
son Israel hath been without the true God, and 
without a teaching priest, and without law. But 
when they in their trouble did turn unto the Lord 
God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of 
them. Be ye strong therefore and let not your 
hands be weak; for your work shall be rewarded.” 
The revival of religious faith and feeling which ex- 
pressed itself in that covenant not only pervaded 
the kingdom, but spread into the territory of the ten 
tribes. In the great assembly which the king called 
together for that purpose, there were “ strangers with 
them out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of 
Simeon,” as well as his own subjects for they fell 
to him out of Israel- in abundance, when they saw 
that the Lord his God was with him.” 

Thus far all is fair and beautiful ; we have before 
us the picture of a wise, religious, and energetic 
prince. But it is huma^i. It must have its dark 
shading. It is the picture of a man, and there is no 
man that liveth,and “sinneth not.” He was a man 
of faith, and faith had shown itself in him illustri- 
ously, yet his faith was weak ; alas, how seldom is 
it strong ! Even the Apostles are told that theirs, 
was not as a “grain of mustard seed,” genuine but 
poor — such is religion wont to be in our fallen nature. 
Conspicuous, as we have seen, for his earnestness 


88 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


in supporting the worship of God, and rooting out 
idolatry, with its attendant immoralities, and for the 
vigor and wisdom with which he provided for the 
welfare of his kingdom, the time came at last when 
he was found wanting, and the tone of his faith 
proved not equal to the emergency. The old war 
between the severed portions of Jacob’s race still 
continued. In the northern kingdom, Baasha, hav- 
ing exterminated the posterity of Jeroboam, sat 
upon his throne. Insolently he built Ramah, on 
the very dividing lines between the kingdoms, men- 
acing Jerusalem, to the intent “that he might let 
none go out or come in to Asa, king of Judah.” 
And to strengthen himself in his bold pretensions 
he had formed a league with the king of Syria, that 
dwelt at Damascus. Asa, by a stroke of policy, 
bought off the Syrian king, exhausting for the pur- 
pose the treasury of the kingdom, and even the 
gathered wealth of the temple. The measure was 
successful ; Baasha retreated, and the materials which 
he had gathered at Ramah Asa employed in erect- 
ing fortresses to strengthen his frontier. This was 
prudence ; but it was trust in man and not in God, 
and it met with a severe reproof. “ Hanani the 
seer came to Asa, and said unto him. Because thou 
hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the 
Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of 
Syria escaped out of thine hand. If thy faith had 
been stronger, thy victory had been greater ; “yet be- 
cause thou didst rely on the Lord ” — because thou 
hadst some faith— “ he delivered them into thine 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


89 


hand." So it always is : “ According to thy faith be 
it unto thee." “ For the eyes of the Lord run to 
and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself 
strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect 
toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly ; there- 
fore from henceforth thou shalt have wars." And 
indeed, as it proved, he had sowed the seeds of trouble 
for generations of his posterity. Nor did Asa be- 
have himself meekly under the divine reproof. “ Asa 
was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison- 
house ; for he was in a rage with him because of this 
thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the 
same time." Alas for human nature ! “There is none 
that doeth good, no, not one." At last in his old 
age, when he had reigned thirty-nine years, he was 
“ diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceed- 
ing great ; yet in his disease he sought not the 
Lord, but to the physicians." Alas again ! But 
now his life drew near to that end which awaits all 
lives. After three years more of suffering he “slept 
with his fathers," in the one and fortieth year of his 
reign, — in spite of his defects and blemishes, a good 
man, and one of the best Israelitish sovereigns. 
And deeply did his subjects love, honor, and lament 
him. “ They buried him in his own sepulchre, which 
he had made for himself in the city 'of David, and 
laid him in the bed, which was filled with sweet 
odors and divers kinds of spices prepared by the 
apothecary’s art, and they made a very great burn- 
ing for him." 

Now, in applying this case to our own edification, 


90 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


we find that it administers to us an admonition 
touching our faith, as it respects God, and touching 
our temper, as it respects man. 

Touching our faith, it says to us, “ Trust in the 
Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own 
understanding.” Faith in man is a delicate princi- 
ple when directed to the great object on which it 
ought, in view of what he is in himself, and of what 
he is to man, to rest with a calm and imperturbable 
firmness. By nature “ without God in the world,” 
he lives, if left to himself, not having “ God in all 
his thoughts.” If education brings the great idea 
into his mind, and divine grace fixes it there, and 
gives it form, and life, and reality, and power, it must 
be cared for assiduously, or it will fade, and in the 
end disappear. An exotic, it is never so domesti- 
cated in the soul as to become hardy enough to 
bear neglect, and be left to take care of itself. Asa 
was a man of faith. He believed in Israel’s God, and 
not in the filthy idols of Maachah, or of the surround- 
ing peoples. God was a reality to him, the God with 
whom he had to do, whom he recognized, remem- 
bered, reverenced, worshipped, served, and trusted. 
He was a religious man, and of all true religion 
faith is the central principle. He that cometh to 
God must believe that he is, and is a rewarder of 
them that diligently seek him.” And his faith on 
one occasion of his life had wrought illustriously. 
In the Cushite invasion it had obtained for him re- 
markable success. Perhaps the fact that it had 
operated so vigorously and efficaciously then had 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


91 


put him off his guard. “ Happy is the man that 
feareth always.” He that trusteth in his own heart 
is a fool.” He had proved himself a man of faith 
once, and so he pronounced his faith strong enough 
for any emergency that could possibly arise. It was 
a presumptuous and hasty thought, and it was pun- 
ished. So, when Baasha came against him, with 
Benhadad for an ally, as it were, before he knew it, 
he swerved from his reliance on God. The heart, 
deceitful above all things,” led him astray into a 
dependence upon “ an arm of flesh.” And instead 
of standing up bravely in God’s strength, to fight in 
God’s cause, he bought off Benhadad by bribery, 
and triumphed by a league with idolatry, and then 
God’s faithful servant, that reproved his fault, he 
visited with contumely and harshness. And so he 
marred the beauty of his life, toward its close, with 
oppression and injustice. Alas, this weakness of 
faith, and its failures, what a besetting evil of the 
religious life it is, and how sadly it detracts from 
the symmetry and value of much genuine religion ! 
Let us diligently watch against it in our own hearts. 
Let us be careful to set God always before us, to 
realize him to ourselves as a true, personal, pres- 
ent, governing God. Let us cherish and feed the 
principle of faith in our souls by meditation, by 
prayer, and the faithful use of all means fitted to 
make the things of faith real, evident, and influen- 
tial. Let us recognize God’s overruling providence 
as ordering all things in heaven and earth, and re- 
joice in the conviction that “ not a sparrow falleth 


92 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


to the ground without our Father ! ” Let us act in 
the belief that “ our help standeth in the name of the 
Lord,” and not in ourselves or in men, and that 
with that help the weak are strong. Let us rely im- 
plicitly on his mercy in Christ Jesus, for all strength 
to do and to bear here, and for all hope of good 
hereafter ; that so, “ not with fleshly wisdom, but by 
the grace of God, we may have our conversation in 
the world,” and that, “ after this painful life is ended,” 
our faith may be found in the day of the Lord, lau- 
dable, glorious, and honorable, to the increase of 
glory and endless felicity. 

And now for a closing word touching the temper 
in which good men should receive the reproofs which 
their errors oftentimes merit and invite. Asa met 
the faithful rebuke of the seer, whom God had sent 
to show him his error, not with the meekness and 
thankfulness which it deserved, but with resentment 
and rage. He had swerved from faith in God, and 
now he swerved from justice to men ; so sin is pro- 
lific, and one fault begets another; yet reproof is an 
office of true friendship, and, rightly administered 
and accepted, is salutary. “ Am I then become 
your enemy because I tell you the truth ? ” says St. 
Paul to the Galatian Christians. Never did he 
more show himself their friend. “ As an ear-ring of 
gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise re- 
prover upon an obedient ear.” Alas, that the Chris- 
tian man’s ear is so often not an obedient ear! 
“ A reproof entereth more into a wise man, than a 
hundred stripes into a fool.” Alas, that so few are 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


93 


wise ! On the other hand, “he that refuseth reproof 
erreth, and he that hateth reproof is brutish.” 
Plainly then, reproof is a powerful instrument of in- 
struction and improvement. And it is a duty of our 
Christian vocation, to be performed with a due re- 
gard to circumstances and relations, but not to be 
utterly refused. The correlative duty is that of re- 
ceiving it with calmness, with candor, with docility. 
We see in the case before us how a great king, a 
wise king, and a good king failed in this respect. 
He was wrong; he had distrusted God ; he had re- 
sorted to unworthy means to compass a worthy 
end. But he could not bear to be told that he was 
wrong, even by an accredited minister of God. 
Perhaps, in the joyful flush of success his conscience 
did not at once respond to the accusation. “ He 
was angry with the seer, and put him in prison ; and 
he oppressed some of the people the same time ; ” 
those we may think who took the seer’s part. Yet 
the seer did but do his duty. The Law under 
which he lived had said, “ Thou shalt in any wise 
rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him.” 
And he was God’s special messenger. Reproof is a 
difficult thing to administer well, more difficult to 
receive well. We are ready enough to say, this 
was very bad in Asa ; how strange a thing in so 
good a man ! But, let us see to it, that in judging 
another we do not condemn ourselves. To know 
our faults is wisdom. To tell us of them is kind 
ness. Let us not be angry with the truth because 
it is unpalatable, or deem our truest friends our 


94 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


enemies ; but welcome all helps to self-knowledge, 
and gladly improve them to repentance and amend- 
ment of life. 

And finally, let us take home the comfortable con- 
viction that a good life, though it have stains — and 
what life has not ? — will at its close, when men come 
to sum it up, receive at their hands a fair meed of 
approval, reverence, and honor, as Asa’s did ; and be- 
yond, from the just and yet merciful Judge, a reward 
“ beyond all that we can ask or think.” 


VIII. 

JEHOSHAPHAT. 

And Jehoshaphat the son of Asa began to reign over Judah in 
the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel. — I. Kings xxii : 41. 

The lives of kings and others in eminent station 
recorded in the Bible are put there not merely as so 
much history, but in order that, by the contempla- 
tion of them as they are portrayed by the Divine 
Spirit, men through all time may be made wiser and 
better, fitter to live, fitter to die. Jehoshaphat, the 
fourth of the kings of Judah, is one of the kings of 
whom the Word of God speaks well, whose course in 
the main it holds up for imitation. It says of him : 
“ And he walked in the ways of Asa his father ; he 
turned not aside from it, doing that which was right 
in the eyes of the Lord.” “ And the Lord was with 
Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of 
his father David, and sought not unto Baalim; but 
sought to the Lord God of his father, and walked in 
his commandments, and not after the doings of 
Israel.” Yet the historian adds “ Howbeit.” Alas ! 
what good life is without its “howbeit” — its excep- 
tion, its flaw, its blot? And the “howbeit” in the 
case of Jehoshaphat was very grave and important 
and prolific. For after all the commendation that 
God bestows upon him, after all his claims to be re- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


96 

garded as a good man and a good king, after all we see 
in him that is brilliant and beautiful and beneficent, 
we are compelled to look upon him as the source of 
that long train of evils which ended in the ruin of 
his country, and to say that, though eminently pious 
and patriotic, he destroyed the religion of his king- 
dom, and as the remote but effectual cause, brought 
the state to disgrace and destruction ; that Jiis hand 
sowed the seed, of which, centuries after, the Baby- 
lonish Captivity was the full-blown flower. He made 
alliance with Ahab, king of Israel, and cemented 
that alliance by the marriage of his son Jehoram 
with Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and the abom- 
inable Jezebel. And so Jehoshaphat was, after all, 
rather a fortunate and successful than a great ruler. 

Jehoshaphat, then, was one of those kings of Ju- 
dah, of whom the Word of God speaks in terms of 
commendation. And yet from his reign and his 
policy dates the decline of that kingdom, the begin- 
ning of that downward course, which, with a few 
temporary checks under the rule of pious kings, 
went steadily on till it ended in ruin and extinction. 
Policy was, indeed, his great and fatal error; the sub- 
stitution of policy for obedience, the assumption of 
independent action instead of that careful reliance 
on the directions of Him, who, under the theocratic 
constitution of that government, was the real sove- 
reign, and whose deputy and viceroy the human 
monarch only was. Jehoshaphat, albeit a God-fear- 
ing man, forgot what he was, and undertook the 
management of his kingdom, as though he had no 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


97 


superior, whose will he was bound to ascertain, whose 
directions he was bound to follow. It is a fault into 
which men, and good men, are apt to fall. So Josh- 
ua, in the conquest of Canaan, suffered himself to 
be beguiled by the crafty Gibeonites, when “ the men 
took of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the 
mouth of the Lord.” The precept is to all men, 
specially to rulers, above all to a ruler of such pecu- 
liar relations to him as a king of Judah : “ Trust in the 
Lord with all thy heart, and lean not to thine own un- 
derstanding. ” Jehoshaphat, unfortunately for him- 
self, leaned to his own understanding, and reaped the 
evil fruits in an entailment of mischief on his family 
and his kingdom that went on thickening, till at last 
by the waters of Babylon they “ sat down and wept,” 
unable to “sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.” 

Jehoshaphat inaugurated a new course of policy 
toward the adjoining kingdom of Issachar, of the ten 
tribes, that had grown up into strength and pros- 
perity by his side during the reigns of his father and 
grandfather. Hitherto the two kingdoms had stood 
toward one another in an attitude of open hostility. 
“ There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam 
all their days.” Then followed the reign of Abijah ; 
and still there was war between Rehoboam, in the 
person of his son and successor, and Jeroboam, “all 
his days.” Asa followed; and “there was war be- 
tween Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their 
days.” Jehoshaphat thought there had been war 
long enough. He resolved that there should be war 
no longer. He determined on a pacific policy. He 
5 


98 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


thought it was wise. In the eyes' of men it was 
wise. I am not about to say that it was not wise in 
substance ; but it certainly was not wise in form. 

Jehoshaphat joined affinity with Ahab,” and ce- 
mented it by the marriage of his son and Ahab’s 
daughter. There might not have been an obliga- 
tion to perpetuate a national feud, but it was not well 
to staunch it by the admission of a domestic taint 
which in the end would prove to the country, whose 
royal line it infected, a worse evil than war — far 
worse. Peace is good, but it may be purchased too 
dearly. From the times before the flood, when 
the sons of God took wives of the daughters of 
men, matrimonial alliances with the wicked had 
been a prolific source of the spread and increase of 
sin. God had told his people not to make mar- 
riages with the idolaters around them, and plainly 
forewarned them of the evils that would follow. 
But Ahab was an idolater, and, not satisfied with 
the worship of Jeroboam’s calves, had brought in 
the viler abominations of the Phoenician supersti- 
tion. His court, we have reason to think, was splen- 
did and voluptuous ; and in the imported luxury and 
magnificence of Sidonian civilization, Samaria outdid 
Jerusalem. It dazzled Jehoshaphat. He did not 
desire to continue at war with his prosperous neigh- 
bor. It was better that the divided parts of Jacob’s 
race should dwell by one another in peace. To re- 
duce the revolted tribes again under the sceptre of 
the house of David was impossible. It was contrary 
to the declared will of God. Thus saith the Lord, 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


99 


Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren 
the children of Israel.” There should be peace be- 
tween Judah and Ephraim, Jehoshaphat and Ahab. 
And the peace should be sealed by a family alliance. 
Jehoshaphat’s son Jehoram should marry Ahab’s 
daughter Athaliah. But Ahab’s daughter was also 
Jezebel’s daughter. And Jezebel was the daughter 
of the king of Sidon, and taught her husband and 
her son the worship of Baal ; and thus Samaria, 
under her corrupting influence, had become a second 
Sidon, as idolatrous, as sensual, and as foul. And all 
this debasement was now carried to Jerusalem, the 
city of God, where it was first tolerated out of court- 
esy to the new ally, and then domesticated, loved, and 
adopted. And so though, during Jehoshaphat’s time, 
the king’s real goodness and true religious faith kept 
the evil in check, his death soon removed the barrier ; 
and then heathenism, and all the disgraceful prac- 
tices that follow in its train, came in like a flood. 
Jehoram openly worshipped the deities of his wife 
and of his father-in-law. Israel turned its back 
on the holy rites that were observed upon Mount 
Moriah. The temple of Solomon was to a large 
extent forsaken. Men went in crowds to the groves 
and high places, where an obscene yet elegant re- 
ligion sat enshrined. The royal stock carried in its 
veins the poison of Phoenician corruption. The 
tide set strongly in the direction of unbelief and 
apostasy. The voices of the prophets — the stern 
rebukes of Elijah, and the more courtly remon- 
strances of Elisha, the sturdy plainness of Amos, and 


lOO 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


the sharp warnings of Hosea — made little headway 
against it. A good priest like Zacharias, the son of 
Barachias, “ whom they slew between the temple and 
the altar,” might win the crown of martyrdom by 
his fearless fidelity. A righteous king like Hezekiah 
or Josiah might bring about a pause and a partial re- 
form. But the heart of the people was perverted, 
and fully set in them to do evil. And not till the 
city that was full of people had sat solitary seventy 
years ; not till the Lord had “ caused the solemn 
feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,” and 
had “ despised, in the indignation of his anger, the 
king and the priest,” was the bad leaven purged 
out of the people, and such a firmness of faith 
established among them as would manfully defy 
the might of Antiochus, nerve the hands of the 
Maccabean brothers to fight, and so strengthen 
even women that they were tortured, not “ accept- 
ing deliverance,” that they “ might attain a better 
resurrection.” 

Yet Jehoshaphat was a good king, one of the best 
of the Jewish sovereigns. He was, too, a prosperous 
and successful monarch. His country flourished un- 
der his sway. He sought to do his subjects good, 
and he did them good. God blessed and honored 
him in his ways. He died in peace and in favor 
with God. He rests among the righteous in Para- 
dise, and awaits the resurrection of the just. But 
he leaned to his own understanding in a matter of 
great moment. He put policy for principle, con- 
ciliation for frank dissent, worldly advantage for 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


lOI 


manly firmness, and sowed the seeds of evil, that 
lived and thrived and bore fruit centuries after his 
decease. 

The Word of God tells the story with its custom- 
ary impartiality and fairness. “ The Lord was with 
Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of 
his father David, and sought not unto Baalim ; but 
sought to the Lord God of his father, and walked 
in his commandments, and not after the doings of 
Israel. Therefore the Lord stablished the kingdom 
in his hand; and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat 
presents ; and he had riches and honor in abun- 
dance.” And in the third year of his reign he sent 
his princes to teach in the cities of Judah. And 
with them he sent Levites, and priests, “ and they 
taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of 
the Lord with them, and went about throughout all 
the cities of Judah, and taught the people. And 
the fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of 
the lands that were round about Judah, so that they 
made no war against Jehoshaphat.” “And Jehosh- 
aphat waxed great exceedingly ; and he built in 
Judah castles and cities of store. And he had much 
business in the cities of Judah ; and the men of war, 
mighty men of valor, were in Jerusalem.” But now 
for the flaw in his character and life. “ He joined 
affinity with Ahab,” and soon complaisance toward 
his new ally drew him into a war with Syria, in 
which he was not called to intermeddle by duty or 
regard to the public weal. The result was defeat, 
and a narrow escape from death. And the seer 


102 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


Jehu, the son of Hanani, said to him on his return 
to his house : “ Shouldest thou help the ungodly, 
and love them that hate the Lord ? therefore is 
wrath upon thee from before the Lord. Neverthe- 
less there are good things found in thee, in that 
thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, 
and hast prepared thine heart to seek God.” He 
persevered after this in his godly course, and care- 
fully sought to perform among his subjects the of- 
fice of a religious and upright monarch. The neigh- 
boring tribes attacked him ; for now by his sinful 
alliance and engagement the shield of the divine 
protection was withdrawn. But he sought the 
Lord, and was favored with a great deliverance. 
“ So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for his 
God gave him rest roundabout.” But alas ! Jeho- 
ram, his son, had the daughter of Ahab to wife. 
And from the entanglement of this bad connection 
he could not get clear. “ And after this did Jehosh- 
aphat king of Judah join himself with Ahaziah 
king of Israel,” the son and successor of Ahab, 
“ who did very wickedly : and he joined himself with 
him to make ships to go to Tarshish.” “ Then 
Eliezer the son of Dodavah of Mareshah, proph- 
esied against Jehoshaphat, saying. Because thou 
hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath 
broken thy works. And the ships were broken, 
that they were not able to go to Tarshish.” But now 
his life of mingled good and evil, success and disas- 
ter, glory and disgrace, drew to its close. And 
“ Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


103 

with his fathers in the city of David, and Jehoram 
his son reigned in his stead.” 

Now then, here we have two distinct phases of 
the life of one man very strongly contrasted, yet 
much mingled up, contradictory of one another in a 
very marked and striking degree, so that as the his- 
tory passes alternately to the one and the other, we 
might almost doubt either the identity of the man 
or the veracity of the narrative, did we not see simi- 
lar inconsistencies in men, and feel them in our- 
selves. For what agreement is there between Je- 
hoshaphat seeking God, putting down idolatry, 
disseminating the Word of God and preachers of 
righteousness throughout his dominions, appointing 
righteous men to govern and judge his people, pray- 
ing to God for help, and praising him for his 
gracious intervention, rich, powerful, prosperous, 
successful, honored; and the same Jehoshaphat 
courting the friendship of one of the worst of men, 
bringing into his court and into the embrace of his 
son the vile daughter of the vilest of women, joining 
him in his war of greedy ambition, listening to the 
lying divinations of his prophets of idols, associating 
with his wicked son in projects of commercial gain, 
worsted, fleeing from unsuccessful battle, reproved 
by the solemn voice of God’s prophets, and, though 
at last dying in peace, handing on to his posterity 
and his realm a legacy of evil which should mark 
his reign in his country’s annals, with all that was 
good and seemly and praiseworthy in it, as the 
source of that decay which ended in its destruction ? 


104 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


See here the vital necessity of singleness and unity 
in the religious life. The want of it may not destroy 
its genuineness and reality, but it will greatly mar its 
symmetry, its comfort, and its usefulness. ‘‘ Their 
heart is divided ; now shall they be found faulty.’’ 
“ Ephraim is a cake not turned,” says Hosea. 
‘‘ Unite my heart to fear thy name,” prays the Psalm- 
ist ; bring all the power of my soul into harmonious 
and concentrated action in thy service. Let no one 
feeling or faculty stray away after alien and contrary 
interests. Alas, what want of unity there is in most 
Christian lives, what an alloy of the world cleaves to 
them and disfigures them, how little there is of that 
gathering up of all the forces of the life into one 
single purpose, which spoke in St. Paul’s “ This 
one thing I do ” ! Alas that men will, despite the 
Saviour’s warning, essay the impossible task of serv- 
ing God and mammon, and make their religious 
life like the religion of the Samaritans, who “ feared 
the Lord and served other gods.” My brethren, 
our renunciation of evil, in any and in all of its 
forms, can never be too absolute, too thorough, and 
too complete, nor our watch against its intrusions 
too constant, too vigilant, and too earnest. In our 
lives, if we leave it there, or let it in, it can only be 
a cause of wickedness, deformity, and failure. 

And consider, again, how great the temptation to 
compromises is. In what seemly forms the tempta- 
tion presents itself; with what specious pleas it 
asks for admission. Peace was a good thing, war 
was a sad calamity. Surely it was well to put an 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


105 


end to it. And friendly neighbors must reciprocate 
friendly acts and form ties of friendship. Jehosha- 
phat at peace with Ahab must admit Ahab’s daughter 
into his family. And having family bonds with him, 
he must espouse his quarrel, and help him in battle, 
and join his ungodly son in sending ships to sea. So 
the evil crept in under a very seemly disguise. So 
it is wont to do. It is too wise to show its ugly 
face naked. It comes in a mask. Scrutinize things 
carefully ; see if they will bear examination ; see if 
they are indeed what they, profess to be. Beware 
of careless alliances and hasty engagements. There 
may be that in some very well-looking, associations 
that will poison our whole lives, and do harm to 
generations unborn. 

For remember, finally, that a wrong step once 
taken cannot easily be retraced, and an injurious 
engagement once entered into will hold us fast be- 
yond possibility of extrication. If we watch the 
life of Jehoshaphat, we shall see this strikingly ex- 
emplified. That bond which fastened him to Ahab 
was a tether beyond which he could never go ; we 
see him all his life struggling to be a good man, to 
serve God, to promote the best interests of his king- 
dom, to strengthen God’s Church, promote virtue, 
religion, truth. And he did it. But it was in 
shackles, and at a fearful disadvantage. How could 
he drive out idolatry, who must connive at an idola- 
trous daughter-in-law in his court, and go to battle 
with an idolatrous ally, attended by a retinue of 
four hundred lying prophets, and see the only true 
5 * 


I06 SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 

prophet there mocked and insulted by Zedekiah 
the son of Chenaanah? He could not do it. Yet 
from this alliance, which he looked upon as a mas- 
ter-stroke of policy, he could not disengage himself, 
he could not unmarry his son, he could not brave 
Ahab’s wrath. “ He that committeth sin is the ser- 
vant of sin.” It is so universally. Beware of a false 
step. Pray God to keep you from it. Once taken 
there may be no escape, and no place for repent- 
ance,” though you seek it ‘‘ carefully with tears.” 


IX. 


JEHORAM. 

Jehoram was thirty and two years old when he began to reign, and 
he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he walked in the way of 
the kings of Israel, like as did the house of Ahab ; for he had the 
daughter of Ahab to wife : and he wrought that which was evil in the 
eyes of the Lord. Howbeit the Lord would not destroy the house 
of David, because of the covenant that he had made with David, and 
as he promised to give a light to him and to his sons for ever. — 
II. Chronicles xxi : 5-7. 

The inspired histories of the Jews are full of in- 
structions, and if we read them with care and reflec- 
tion they impart to us lessons of life of the highest 
interest and value. All history is profitable, and 
every devout and believing mind will see God in it, 
the true actor in its events, the true solution of its 
phenomena. But here we have history in which 
God is graciously pleased to reveal his action and 
proclaim his meaning ; to reduce political and secu- 
lar interests to their true inferiority, and exalt the 
moral, the spiritual, and the eternal, to their proper 
pre-eminence. A history so illuminated is a series 
of pictures illustrative of truths and principles of 
the greatest practical value, full of warnings against 
specific errors, follies, and faults, rich in commenda- 
tions of wisdom, virtue, and religion in their varied 
applications to the different circumstances, occur- 


I08 SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 

rences, and exigencies of life. They are barren 
only to the thoughtless and the superficial ; while 
even their less marked and striking portions become 
mines of spiritual riches to the studious and the 
diligent. Perhaps, for instance, such a passage as 
that which I have just read, to multitudes of per- 
sons seems of little importance, the mere filling up 
of the narrative, an unmeaning link in the chain of 
events. Jehoram is to them but a name; there is np 
definite instruction in the man, no particular lesson 
is enforced by the very brief and general story of his 
life. But I am persuaded that Jehoram deserves to 
be studied, and that if we will bend our attention to 
him, he will come forth from the dimness and indis- 
tinctness that invest him, and stand out upon the 
tendons a man, with a life and character that may 
be studied with interest and profit. 

Jehoram was the son of Jehoshaphat, who was, as 
we have lately seen, a good man, but a weak sover- 
eign ; and in the father’s errors are to be sought 
the causes of the son’s faults and misfortunes. It 
was the error of Jehoshaphat that, though a truly 
religious man, he was too much influenced by the 
principles of worldly wisdom and political craft, and 
did not sufficiently remember the peculiarity of his 
position as the’ head of a theocratic constitution, 
the ruler of a people of whom God was, in a special 
sense and by a peculiar arrangement, the King and 
Protector; whose true strength lay in God’s favor, 
whose real weakness arose from God’s displeasure. 
He was ambitious and susceptible of flattery, desirous 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


109 


to shine among the neighboring monarchs, and for 
this purpose he engaged in foreign wars and entered 
into alliance with Ahab, the king of apostate Israel, 
thinking thereby to augment both his own personal 
importance and the honor of his kingdom ; but only 
getting for himself the mortification of a disastrous 
defeat, and entailing misery and misfortune on his 
subjects, descendants, and successors. Nevertheless 
he was one of whom it is recorded that “ he turned 
not aside from doing that which was right in the 
eyes of the Lord, ” and that he “ sought to the Lord 
God of his father, and walked in his commandments.” 
And often is it thus the case that the blemishes and 
defects of good men almost neutralize their virtues 
and services, and leave it a problem in the balance 
of their life whether the cause of God has been 
more benefited or injured by their influence. 

The capital blunder of Jehoshaphat’s reign, then, 
was his alliance with Ahab, the idolatrous king of 
Israel, one of the basest and most atrocious of all 
the line of evil sovereigns that ruled over the re- 
volted tribes. He had desisted from active war with 
his neighbor, not unadvisedly ; but a league with him 
was uncalled for and dangerous. It involved him in 
the shame and loss of the battle of Ramoth-gilead, in 
which Ahab lost his life, and drew down upon him 
the bold censure of the prophet. Jehu the son of 
Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to 
king Jehoshaphat, “ Shouldest thou help the un- 
godly, and love them that hate the Lord ? therefore 
is wrath upon thee from before the Lord. Never- 


no 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


theless there are good things found in thee, in that 
thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, 
and hast prepared thine heart to seek God.” But 
not till Jehoshaphat was at rest in his grave did the 
worst effects of his errors appear, as is often the 
case. Our misdeeds hand in their mischiefs to the 
generations following, and the sins of the fathers 
are visited upon the children unto the third and 
fourth generations. The political alliance with Ahab 
was cemented by the marriage of his son and heir 
Jehoram, the subject of this discourse, to Athaliah, 
the daughter of Ahab, a connection that brought an 
evil alloy into the line of David, and plunged the 
family of Jehoram in misfortune, and brought it to 
the verge of extinction, and in a few years reduced 
Judah almost to the level of the sister kingdom, in 
irreligion and vice. The mother of Athaliah was 
Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, who brought into 
Israel with her the vile, filthy, lascivious religion of 
her own country, and engrafted it upon the worship 
of the golden calves which Jeroboam had invented. 
The deterioration of the nation after this was rapid, it 
hastened to its just doom. Athaliah was such as the 
daughter of an Ahab and a Jezebel might be expect- 
ed to be, a bold, shameless, unscrupulous woman, 
who imbrued her hands in the blood of her own off- 
spring, usurped the throne, maintained idolatry in 
its vilest forms, and at last perished like her wretch- 
ed mother by violence. By these two evil women, 
the mother and the daughter, were the seeds of 
corruption and decay plentifully scattered in both 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


Ill 


branches of the sacred stock, and the destruction of 
both was thus fearfully accelerated. There is noth- 
ing viler or more pernicious than a bad woman. A 
bad woman is indeed one of the worst things on 
earth. Jezebel brought the Tyrian religion into 
Israel, Athaliah carried it into Judah, and soon the 
whole Israelitish people in both its branches was 
swallowed up in the worship of Baal, the imperson- 
ation of cruel, unscrupulous, and relentless power^ 
and of Ashtaroth, or Astarge, the deification of ob- 
scene and sensual pleasure ; and so the sacred idea 
of divinity in both kingdoms became such as to be 
fitly honored by blood and lust. The awful scenes 
that followed were the appropriate results. 

Jehoram, then, was the husband of Athaliah, and 
the son-in-law of Jezebel. They stamped their mark 
upon his character and life, and the evil passed on 
in his posterity till Judah was destroyed. For 
the bad taint never departed from the royal line, 
though it was temporarily arrested in Josiah and 
Hezekiah. In the second generation from Jehoram 
the line would have been exterminated but for the 
precarious preservation of his grandson Joash by his 
daughter Jehoshabeath, who had married the high 
priest Jehoiada. He plunged into the idolatry of 
his wife’s family with eagerness, and compelled his 
subjects to conform to the vile practices which it 
brought in its train. His brethren of his father’s 
house, which were better than he, true to their 
father’s principles, probably opposers of his infatu- 
ated and ruinous cause, he put to death. And soon 


II2 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


the sad spectacle was presented of a king and peo- 
ple, in that land where alone the true God had re- 
vealed himself, forsaking his service, and giving 
themselves up to the gravest excesses and abomina- 
tions that disgrace the heathen. Then it was that 
“ there came a writing to him from Elijah the proph- 
et, saying. Thus saith the Lord God of David thy 
father. Because thou hast not walked in the ways of 
Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa 
king of Judah, but hast walked in the way of the 
kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the in- 
habitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the 
whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast 
slain thy brethren of thy father’s house, which were 
better than thyself: behold, with a great plague will 
the Lord smite thy people, and thy children, and thy 
wives, and all thy goods : and thou shalt have great 
sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels 
fall out by reason of the sickness day by day.” 

And now came the terrible retribution, the awful 
fulfilment of the prophet’s threat. “ Moreover the 
Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the 
Philistines, and of the Arabians, that were near the 
Ethiopians; and they came up into Judah, and 
brake into it, and carried away all the substance 
that was found in the king’s house, and his sons also, 
and his wives; so that there was never a son left 
him, save Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons. And 
after all this the Lord smote him in his bowels with 
an incurable disease. And it came to pass, that 
in process of time, after the end of two years, his 


SOVEJ^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


II3 

bowels fell out by reason of his sickness : so he died 
of sore diseases. And his people made no burning 
for him, like the burning of his fathers. Thirty and 
two years old was he when he began to reign, and 
he reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed 
without being desired. Howbeit they buried him 
in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of 
the kings.’’ So lived and died Jehoram, drawn in 
his youth by a good but unwise father’s ambition 
into a fatal alliance with wickedness, the husband 
of the wicked daughter of the wicked Jezebel, cor- 
rupted, spoiled, ruined by association with irreligion 
and idolatry, visited with God’s heavy displeasure, 
till in his royal palace, turned by suffering into a 
hospital and a tomb, impoverished and bereft, loath- 
some to himself, a nuisance to others, at the early 
age of forty he departed without being desired. 
Not loved in life, not lamented in death, denied 
a royal tomb, and only allowed a grave in Jerusa- 
lem out of respect for his exalted station. What 
a picture ! What a moral ! Nor did the mischief 
end here. See how it reaches on to following gen- 
erations. “ The people of Jerusalem made Aha- 
ziah his youngest son king in his stead.” “ He 
reigned one year in Jerusalem.” “ He walked in 
the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother 
was his counsellor to do wickedly,” that same evil 
daughter of Jezebel that had destroyed the father. 
He went to visit the king of Israel, his cousin, 
and was killed in the conspiracy of Jehu, which 
occurred at the time ; so the alliance was the cause 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


1 14 

of his death, as it had before been of his wicked- 
ness. Athaliah now usurped the throne, and sig- 
nalized her accession by a general slaughter of the 
seed royal. One youthful grandson, Joash, the 
youngest son of Ahaziah, escaped the slaughter, 
and was kept hidden in the temple by his aunt, the 
high priest’s wife. After a few years he was pro- 
duced, and in a rising of the' people in his favor 
Athaliah was put to death in an attempt to escape. 
Joash, after a hopeful beginning under the guidance 
of the good high priest, on the death of his coun- 
sellor fell into the evil ways of his family, and 
perished by assassination. Amaziah, who succeeded, 
was murdered, and Uzziah, the next in the line, died 
a leper ; so the fault and the punishment went down 
to the third and fourth generation. 

And now, if 1 have succeeded in introducing you 
into a rather unfrequented page of the sacred his- 
tory, so as to have made its events real to you, and 
taught you their inner meaning, and have, in par- 
ticular, set before you one of its personages, and 
made Jehoram a man to you, and caused him to 
stand forth with something of distinctiveness to your 
mind, as a being that had a character and a life, 
and a history that has a meaning and a moral, and 
showed you his fault and his punishment, reaching 
back in their antecedents to the folly of his father 
that involved him in the mischief of an evil mar- 
riage, and forward to its consequences in accumu- 
lated miseries to himself and his posterity, I shall 
have accomplished my end, to teach you to read 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


II5 

those old histories with due attention and a proper 
regard to their spiritual signification, and so set 
before you the specific lesson which the particular 
instance before us contains. 

See, then, in Jehoram the mischief of close as- 
sociation with the wicked. All his misconduct and 
his suffering, and the evils his course bequeathed to 
successive generations of his descendants, which so 
afflicted his family, his kingdom, and the church of 
God, grew out of the root of his marriage with Atha- 
liah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. It neutral- 
ized the effect of a pious education, and all the 
good influences which must have surrounded the 
early days of the son of the good Jehoshaphat. 
Sad is it to see that the father, for reasons of state 
and temporal advantage, betrayed the son into the 
ruinous connection — a warning to parents not to 
sacrifice their children’s spiritual good to worldly in- 
terest, and especially in the fundamental particular 
of their associations in life. It made him an idola- 
ter, a worldling, and a profligate. It diffused its cor- 
rupting venom into every department and stage of 
his life. It made him a bad ruler, a bad father, a 
bad man. It filled his life with sin and his death 
with despair, and sent him unprepared to the bar of 
God, and then it transmitted its evil influence to 
successive generations of his posterity. Oh ! how 
true is it that he that walketh with wise men shall 
be wise, but the companion of fools shall be de- 
stroyed ” — true as an aphorism, on philosophical 
grounds, but truer as an instance in the pregnant 


Il6 SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 

illustrations of such an example as that before us. 
No doubt Jehoshaphat thought he was making a 
grand connection for his son when he was allying 
him to the daughter of Israel and the granddaughter 
of Tyre ; and unquestionably, upon worldly princi- 
ples and calculations, he was strengthening himself 
and his kingdom. But he was in fact weakening both. 
He might better have married his son to the humblest 
of Judah’s daughters that was virtuous and religious. 
Such things are being done continually in courts, 
and not in courts alone, in the marriages of policy 
or profit which ambitious fathers and scheming 
mothers promote, receiving, as in the case before us, 
the reward that is meet in misery to themselves and 
their posterity. Let parents guard well the asso- 
ciations, the intimacies, the alliances of their chil- 
dren. Let the young carefully avoid those who are 
wrong in opinion or evil in life, and in seeking asso- 
ciates and companions in any relations of life, but 
especially in those which are closest never- forget 
the paramount claims of truth, of goodness, of right 
principles, of worthy conduct. Their character, their 
honor, their usefulness in life, their hope in death, 
largely depend upon it. Be not unequally yoked 
together with unbelievers? for what fellowship hath 
righteousness with unrighteousness? and what com- 
munion hath light with darkness? and what concord 
hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that 
believeth with an infidel ? for ye are the temple of 
the living God ; as God hath said, I will dwell in 
them, and walk in them ; and I will be their God, and 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


II7 

they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from 
among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and 
touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, 
and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons 
and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” 

Finally, consider the awful and destructive nature 
of sin. See it in this case of Jehoram. What a 
horrible wreck it made of his life. It is terrible to 
contemplate a life so barren of good to himself and to 
everybody, a death so loathsome, a memory so dis- 
honored, an influence so productive of harm. Yet 
all this was but the genuine fruit of sin, of forsak- 
ing God, disregarding duty, living for the world, 
serving idols, indulging evil desires. To some such 
result sin is always tending, though in many in- 
stances God's merciful providence prevents the full 
development and open disclosure of its pernicious 
effects. You may never be a Jehoram, the cause of 
corruption and ruin to your family, dying by inches 
of a foul and offensive disease. But see what a 
viper you take into your bosom when you admit sin 
into your soul. What a leprosy you let into your 
life, when you suffer sin to gain admittance into 
your actions. Little in its beginning, it will turn 
your whole spiritual nature into corruption in the 
end, and cover your whole history with blight and 
disgrace. Fear nothing so much. Guard against 
nothing so much. And ever pray, “ Lead us not into 
temptation, but deliver us from evil.” 


X. 


AHAZIAH. 

So Ahaziah, the son of Jehoram, king of Judah reigned. He also 
walked in the ways of the house of Ahab : for his mother was his 
counsellor to do wickedly.— II. Chronicles, xxii : i, 3. 

The reign of this prince was short and tragical. 
It lasted but a single year, and it terminated in his 
death by violence. It began in blood and it ended 
in blood. He was the youngest of his father’s 
children, for all the rest had been slain by a band of 
men that came with the Arabians to the camp. 
He was exempted from the massacre by the 
hand of that Providence which, in fulfilment of the 
“ faithful oath unto David ” which God had sworn, 
would not permit the light of his royal line to be 
wholly put out. And so when his miserable father, 
smitten with a loathsome disease, had departed 
“ without being desired,” in the midst of the intestine 
disorder and foreign war, at the age of twenty-two, 

he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Je- 
rusalem.” The poor young king had no good train- 
ing, much bad training. If he was bad — and bad 
he was, for the Bible tells us that he did evil in 
the sight of the Lord ” — it is not strange, when 
we consider what his parentage was, and what his 
bringing up had been. He was born, nurtured, and 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


II9 

bred up to early manhood in a foul, wicked, and 
idolatrous court. “ His mother was his counsellor 
to do wickedly,” says the historian, and little more 
need be said. The fountain of his life was poisoned ; 
no wonder that its streams were filthy and bitter. 
The mischief of the good King Jehoshaphat’s weak 
and mistaken policy, in forming a matrimonial alli- 
ance with the royal family of Israel, had by this 
time become mournfully apparent. The seed had 
grown up, and was blossoming and bearing fruit 
after its kind. Ahaziah was the son of Jehoram, 
king of Judah, and Athaliah, who, you will bear in 
mind, was herself the daughter of Ahab, king of 
Israel, and Jezebel ; and Jezebel’s name is to all 
time a proverb of iniquity and vileness. The daugh- 
ter was worthy of the mother. Nay, in daring, high- 
handed, unscrupulous wickedness, she equalled, if 
it had been possible, would have exceeded her. Nor 
was there anything in Jehoram to counteract or 
mitigate his wife’s bad influence. Married to Atha- 
liah, by his pious father’s folly, in his youth, he 
quickly imbibed her sentiments, and yielded himself 
unresistingly to her pernicious guidance ; and so he 
imported into Judah that obscene, sensual, disgust- 
ing form of idolatry which the Sidonian Jezebel 
had carried with her into Israel. He made high 
places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the 
inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and 
compelled Judah thereto. So an ideal composed of 
lust and cruelty became the nation’s god, and a 
beastly voluptuousness the nation’s worship. At 


120 


SO VEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


his accession he put his six brethren to death, to 
secure himself against disaffection or revolt; and 
his reign of eight years was chiefly consumed in pros- 
ecuting the war against Syria, into which his father 
Jehoshaphat’s fatal alliance with Ahab had drawn 
the kingdom of Judah. In his absence on this ill- 
starred enterprise, Edom revolted from him ; and 
the Philistines and Arabs broke into his capital, 
ravaged his palace, and destroyed his family, “ so 
that there was never a son left him save the young- 
est of his sons.” And after all this the Lord smote 
him in his bowels with an incurable disease, till at 
last he departed without being desired,” not loved 
in life, not lamented in death, and his people, bury- 
ing him with maimed honors, “ made no burning for 
him like the burnings of his fathers.” All this we 
have already seen in a former discussion. To the 
wretched inheritance of his father’s idolatry and 
wickedness, along with his ruinous friendship with 
the abominable house of Ahab, his youngest and 
only surviving son, Ahaziah, succeeded, to be in- 
volved shortly in the impending fate of that family. 

But Athaliah survived to be the ruin of her son, 
as she had been already the bane of her husband. 
She was a woman of strong impulses and a deter- 
mined will, and the young sovereign gave himself 
up to her directions. Under her counsels he began 
that career of irreligion and licentiousness which 
speedily ended in his destruction. The succinct and 
forcible statement of one of the two of the histo- 
rians of his reign is, “ He . also walked in the ways of 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


I2I 


the house of Ahab : for his mother was his counsel- 
lor to do wickedly. Wherefore he did evil in the 
sight of the Lord like the house of Ahab : for they 
were his counsellors after the death of his father to 
his destruction ; *’ and of the other y “ And he walked 
in the way of the house of Ahab, and did evil in 
the sight of the Lord, as did the house of Ahab : 
for he was the son-in-law of the house of Ahab.” 
At the time of his accession, the royal line of Omri, 
in the adjacent kingdom, of which, through Ahab, 
his mother was a daughter, was fast approaching that 
terrible retribution for the atrocities of which it had 
been guilty, which God so signally inflicted upon it 
by the 'hand of Jehu; and as Ahaziah made com- 
mon cause with it he partook of its fate. “The 
companion of fools shall be destroyed.” He was 
their companion and he met their doom. “ The 
destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners 
shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord 
shall be consumed. And the strong shall be as tow, 
and the maker of it a spark, and they shall both 
burn together, and none shall quench them.” 

The war with Syria, which Ahab of Israel began, 
and in which Jehoshaphat of Judah so unwisely 
meddled, in consequence of the marriage of' his son 
with Ahab’s daughter, was not yet appeased. It 
came down with the kingdom as an evil legacy to 
Ahaziah. His uncle Jehoram, of the same name 
with his father, was sitting on the throne of Israel. 
The alliance of the two monarchies into which the He- 
brew race was split, cemented so strongly by intermar- 
6 


122 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


riage and the predominating influence of the queen- 
mother, he had neither disposition nor power to 
break. “ He went with Joram, the son of Ahab, to 
the war against Hazael, king of Syria, in Ramoth- 
gilead ; and the Syrians wounded Joram. And King 
Joram went back to be healed in Jezreel of the 
wounds which the Syrians had given him at Ramah, 
when he fought against Hazael, king of Syria. And 
Ahaziah, the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went 
down to see Joram, the son of Ahab, in Jezreel, be- 
cause he was sick.” At this juncture the rebellion of 
Jehu occurred in the camp, after Joram had retired 
from it. Jehu, proclaimed king by the army in the 
camp, with the swift driving which has made his 
name memorable, made haste to Jezreel to slay his 
disabled master and take possession of his throne. 
At the report of his approach and hostile purpose, the 
two kings went out to meet him. Jehu shot Joram 
through the heart, and his body was cast into the 
field of Naboth, so wickedly seized by his father, 
under the perfidious advice of Jezebel, to fulfil 
God’s Word, “ In the place where dogs licked the 
blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even 
thine.” “And when Ahaziah, the king of Judah, 
saw this, he fled by the way of the garden house, 
and Jehu followed after him, and said. Smite him 
also in the chariot. And they did so at the going 
up to Gur, which is by Ibleam. And he fled to 
Megiddo, and died there. And his servants carried 
him in a chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his 
sepulchre with his fathers in the city of David. 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


123 


Another historian says, “The destruction ‘of Aha- 
ziah was from God by his coming to Joram.” .“It 
came to pass that when Jehu was executing judg- 
ment upon the house of Ahab .... he sought 
Ahaziah ; and they caught him, for he was hid in 
Samaria” — that is, not in the city, but in the ter- 
ritory which had come to be known as Samaria in 
the writer’s time — “and brought him to Jehu” — 
who, we must infer, was at this time where the earlier 
historian states that he was when Ahaziah was killed 
at Megiddo. “And when they had slain him, they 
buried him,” carrying him to Jerusalem for that pur- 
pose, as it appears. ‘‘ Because,” said they, “ he is the 
son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with all his 
heart.” The two accounts thus supplement one 
another, and together complete the story of his 
death. Such were the character, career, and end 
of Ahaziah, the fifth king of Judah, as the Word of 
God sets them before us. 

God has “ caused all holy Scripture to be written 
for our learning,” and “ all Scripture is given by in- 
spiration of God, and is profitable.” This story is 
inserted in the Word of God to be of use to us. 
And that we may not miss that use, we must now 
go back to the central fact of this unhappy king’s 
short life. And a very awful and a very pregnant 
fact it is. 

He had a bad mother^ and his bad mother was 
the evil genius of his life and reign. She was evil. 
She taught him evil. She set him an example of 
evil. Her strong qualities gave evil in her hands a 


124 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUBAII. 


tremendous and destructive force. She made him 
evil. He was evil. And he came to an evil end. 
He did not “ live out half his days.” Misfortune 
slew the ungodly. And though a veil conceals what 
is beyond, we know that “ the wicked is driven into 
darkness,” that outer darkness where is “weeping 
and gnashing of teeth.” The record is, “ His mother 
was his counsellor to do wickedly” — Athaliah, the 
evil daughter of an evil mother, proud, energetic, 
daring, fierce, the devotee of a religion that fed the 
worst passions of our nature under a semblance of 
duty and devotion. She formed him in childhood. 
She advised and directed him as a man. 

A mother : there is no one else in whom the life 
of a child is so much, as it were, contained, that so 
forms the atmosphere in which it moves and has 
its being. And this influence is put forth at the 
period when the subject of it is the most impressible, 
the most ready to take its mould and color from 
the objects around it. And of all these objects 
there is none so potent as the mother, none that 
works at so great an advantage, and with such pow- 
erful effect. There is none with which the child is so 
constantly and familiarly associated, and to which he 
is so strongly drawn by dependence, and the natu- 
ral instincts of confidence and affection. He that has 
the making of the mothers of the nation makes the 
nation. Maternal influence is continually flowing 
forth ; and, entering deeply by avenues which the 
hand of time has opened for it, it embeds itself, as it 
were, in the child’s nature, and sends itself into every 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


125 


department of its life, communicating a line of 
thoughts, ideas, feelings, sentiments, opinions, con- 
ceptions, as they come forth into shape from the 
chaos in which its life begins. And as the process of 
development goes on, impression grows more and 
more into guidance, and the young being learns to 
look with a more conscious intention for instruction 
and direction to her on whom his eyes have gazed 
with a blank, indefinite reliance, ever since they 
opened on an external world. A child when it be- 
gins to exercise a conscious will needs a guide, a 
guide to think, and a guide to act, and the mother 
is at hand to fulfil that office. None can do it so 
well or so effectively. She will discharge it if she 
has no deliberate intention. She discharges it of 
necessity. And never had a being a substance 
easier to work upon. The child is unsuspicious, 
uncritical, trustful. He puts faith in the mother. 
To him the mother is the standard of right and truth. 
What the mother thinks, or says, or does, he is not 
disposed to question or doubt about. The pre- 
sumption in his mind is always that she is what she 
ought to be, and that her beliefs, views, maxims, 
are worthy of confidence and adoption. Her very 
obliquities are not oblique to him ; and so her obli- 
quities are adopted by him, and he does not begin 
to suspect them to be obliquities till his mind is so 
warped that he is incapable of judging of the ques- 
tion fairly. And now he is fashioned into her image ; 
and if she is evil, she has made him “ two-fold more 
the child of hell ” than herself. If she is a woman of 


126 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


strong character, and has found her way far into her 
child, this guidance is indefinitely prolonged, and 
then may reach far beyond his entrance in the years 
of manhood and the independence that it claims. 
And thus, as in the case before us, the instructor of 
Ahaziah in the nursery may become the counsellor 
of Ahaziah on the throne. The influence of the 
father seldom rivals hers. He can seldom be as 
much with the child. His assiduity, however anx- 
ious and loving, comes not in so tender a form. The 
occasional fondling he can afford, the teaching, ad- 
vice, reproof that at spare moments he bestows, but 
poorly match that ever-present, ceaseless, untiring 
pressure, which from morn till eve, and from Sunday 
through the days of the week till Sunday returns 
again, rests gently, but for that reason all the more 
efficaciously on the wax of early life, to make the 
impress upon it deep, clear, and indelible. 

And now if the woman be an Athaliah, a woman of 
false beliefs, unsound opinions, corrupt habits, unbri- 
dled passions and appetites, false, selfish, sensual, a 
slave of pride, or fashion, or vanity, devoted to no 
higher aims than those of this world, and the gratifica- 
tion and pleasure it offers ; and especially if, as may 
be, the moral rottenness be covered with some film of 
personal attraction in appearance, manner, speech, 
be coupled with intelligence and culture, why then 
“ Beelzebub, the prince of devils,” has on earth no 
more puissant minister of harm. And if a child grow 
up under such tutelage it shall be a miracle if he 
does not come to be a bad man, of no religion, or of 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


127 


one that turns the truth of God into a lie, and counts 
some form of sin an acceptable service to him. Su- 
premely devoted to worldly good, and unscrupu- 
lous in regard to the methods of attaining it, self- 
ishly bent on his own advantage at the expense of 
others, or sunk in some form of vice that brutalizes 
the man and renders him an offence and injury to 
others, the blot and bane of the family and of gen- 
eral society. Doubtless such a mother will seek to 
form her child into her own image ; and he will 
go after her in his early simplicity, “ as a fool to 
the correction of the stocks,” till, tied and bound 
by the chain of evil habit, he becomes enamoured 
of his gilded fetters, and walks unblushingly, “ in 
the ways of his heart, and in the sight of his eyes,” 
till the light that is in him is darkness, and oh, how 
great is that darkness ! Then the moral and spiri- 
tual ruin is complete. A mother who does not 
know herself to be grounded and settled in the 
fear of God and in the principles of Christ’s re 
ligion, undertakes a fearful task, and incurs the awful 
risk of reproducing her own character with aggra- 
vations, so that she will not perish alone, but drag 
after her another whose being, drawn from her own 
and bound to it by the closest tie, corrupted by 
her influence, is plunged with her own in the same 
hopeless abyss of woe. A mother who teaches her 
child falsehood, unsound principles of action, indul- 
gences in practices and pleasures of dubious morality, 
and by word and example is leading him to make 
light of religion, and disregard its duties and re- 


128 


so VEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


sfraints, is doing more than any other can to bring 
him to ruin. God forbid that of any son of any mo- 
ther among us it shall be said that his mother was 
his counsellor to do wickedly. 

But, in order to make a mother mischievous to 
her offspring, it is not necessary that she should be 
grossly bad, or endeavor with any fixed purpose to 
communicate to them her own bad views and ways 
of life. Doubtless there is many a mother who feels 
to a certain degree that she is not exactly what she 
ought to be, and indolently wishes that her children 
may be better than herself. But she takes no pains 
to bring about that result. She does not set about 
the fundamental work of amending herself, and the 
stream will not rise higher than its source. She is 
simply thoughtless and frivolous. She does not feel 
her responsibility. She does not understand the 
value of her charge. She lives by no definite rule. 
She lives with no elevated aim. She lets time flow 
on in an inane enjoyment of ease, or in doing her 
work as a matter of course. She believes in treat- 
ing religion decently, with a certain vague respect, 
and she should be shocked at a suspicion of immor- 
ality. She would not on any account teach her 
child anything that would make him bad ; but then 
she does not teach him much that would make him 
good, at least with any steadiness, earnestness, and 
intensity, only occasionally and in a languid way. 
She does not pray for him : if she prays for herself, 
it is only as a pious custom which was taught her in 
her childhood, and which she does not like to aban- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


129 

don. She does not teach her child much directly ; 
but she does teach him very much by her example 
and her casual unconscious expressions of feeling 
in his presence. And that teaching is very bad. 
She teaches him to live loosely and carelessly, to for- 
get God, to live unto himself, to slide through the 
world with no high purpose, with no deep sense of 
obligation, to count his baptism nothing, to '‘do 
despite to the Spirit of grace ’’ which it brought him, 
to “trample under foot the Son of God,” whose 
blood is made over to him, to float on the tide of 
circumstances, and with a general intention to be 
respectable, and if he can, rich and happy, yet get 
through life as his fathers did before him. And 
with this wretched preparation he goes forth from 
her into a world that is full of evil, to encounter its 
manifold temptations, to see its seductive forms of 
sinful pleasure, to behold the glitter of its glory, and 
learn all that is meant by “ the lust of the flesh, 
and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.” 
Against such influences he is not well fortified, and 
he becomes their victim. He grows vicious, or in- 
volved in some species of positive wickedness, and 
is recognized as such. He is not necessarily put 
under the ban of society, for he must be very bad 
whom society will not endure. And so he lives, and 
so he dies, or it may be that the grace of God finds 
him, and turns him, by a late repentance, into the 
way of life. But if he is not greatly altered in one 
of these ways, for the worse or the better, his life 
runs on as it began, devoid of high principles and 
6 '^ 


130 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


holy aims ; with no creed very vigorously held, or 
with a creed that accommodates itself to his prac- 
tice ; a decent worlding, more or less esteemed ac- 
cording as his natural qualities are calculated to 
elicit the praise of men or their censure ; and then 
he dies and all his thoughts perish. And a giddy, 
worldly, irreligious mother is the fountain whence 
the evil stream has flowed. 

May the mothers within my hearing lay these 
things to heart ; and God give them wisdom to be 
wise betimes for themselves and for their children. 


XI. 

ATHALIAH. 

And Athaliah reigned over the land. — II. Chronicles xxii : 12. 


There is but a single female reign in the annals 
of Judah, and that was a usurpation. Yet as it 
lasted six years, and during the time of its continu- 
ance exercised all the functions of government, it 
deserves a distinct consideration among the reigns 
of the Jewish sovereigns. There was, indeed, a 
legitimate monarch living; but as he lived in con- 
cealment, and his existence was unknown to the 
people ; and as moreover he was a young child, in- 
competent to discharge the duties of a king, his 
royalty during these six years is but a legal fiction, 
an ideal abstraction recognized only by the law of 
hereditary succession, — such a royalty as was that 
of Charles II. in the days of the Commonwealth and 
in Cromwell’s time, or Louis XVII. in the time of 
the French Republic, or that of the Stuarts among 
their adherents after the accession of the House of 
Brunswick, or of the ex-kings of Naples and of 
Hanover and of the old French royal line, in this 
period of greatly diminished reverence for heredi- 
tary claims and dignities among those who be- 
lieve in them. Jehoash may have reigned all that 
time theoretically, and according to the law of sue- 


132 


so VEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


cession ; but Athaliah ruled potentially six years. 
And she was a woman who had the elements of 
power in her: bold, fierce, daring, courageous, un- 
scrupulous, she gained the throne by violence, and 
she held it with a vigorous and resolute hand. The 
daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, she was what such 
a parentage might be expected to make her, at once 
in force and in wickedness. The Sidonian blood in 
her veins, brought with it Sidonian strength and 
Sidonian corruption. In her, the fierce determined 
energy which ran through the Phoenician princes 
and princesses of that generation was fully devel- 
oped. She became the great pattern of the worship 
of Baal, in the southern kingdom, as her mother 
had been in the northern. She had brought it in, 
in the days of her husband Jehoram ; she had 
cherished it through the short reign of her son 
Ahaziah ; and now, when that ill-fated prince had 
perished with his uncle on the plain of Esdraelon, 
and she had attained to an undisputed supremacy 
in her own person, she grew so audacious in her 
support of its cruel and licentious rites, that it quite 
overshadowed and threw contempt upon the worship 
of God in the Temple. Rising to power by the 
cruel murder of her own posterity, she kept it with 
a strong hand, awing into acquiescence by her stern 
severity all who might otherwise have dared to ques- 
tion her title or oppose her bold idolatry, the Semi- 
ramis of Judah. 

When peace between the two severed branches of 
the Israelitish race was wisely made by Jehoshaphat, 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


133 


the fourth king in descent from Rehoboam, in whom 
the division began, it was unwisely, as we have 
seen on former occasions, cemented by a marriage, 
the marriage of Jehoram, Jehoshaphat’s son and 
successor, with this woman Athaliah, the daughter 
of Ahab, then sitting on the throne of the ten tribes, 
by Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Sidon. 
The two marriages brought in a deluge of sin and 
misery, that, with some short ebbings, continued to 
swell till it submerged and destroyed both countries. 
They were both great women, the mother and the 
daughter, by the world’s standard — great, if mind 
and will, and energy, if earnestness and unswer- 
ving purpose be greatness — not great by God’s 
rule ; by that rule, indeed, the meanest and the 
smallest. With these women came in the Baal 
worship, that same dark, foul, sensual, abominable 
superstition which the sword of Joshua extermi- 
nated in Canaan, polished but not purified by the 
time that had intervened. With marriages come 
political ties and alliance in war. The kingdoms 
were drawn close together, and Jerusalem was 
tainted by Samaria, as Samaria had been tainted 
by Sidon. And when at length Jehu was raised 
up as God’s scourge to destroy the wicked house of 
Ahab, Ahaziah, the then reigning king of Judah, 
Athaliah’s son by Jehoram, perished with them, as 
also others of the royal family. Jezebel was thrown 
from a window of the palace, and devoured by dogs, 
so that “ they found no more of her than the skull, 
and the feet, and the palms of her hands.” But 


134 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


calamities so awful did not shake the soul of Atha- 
liah. They served but to bring its forces into more 
vigorous action. When the tidings reached Jeru- 
salem of the overthrow of her father’s house, of the 
dreadful end of her mother, and the fall of her an- 
cestral religion in Samaria, instead of daunting her 
resolute spirit, it moved her to a still grander ef- 
fort. She did not quail. She wasted no time 
in mourning. She saw her opportunity, and she 
sprang to it with a fierce joy. Now was the time 
to establish her own authority, and the ascendency 
of her religion. She would be queen of Judah; 
and then it should be seen whether Baal or Jehovah 
should be Judah’s God. What was human life, 
what was natural affection to such a consummation ? 
No doubt this human tigress was animated to her 
work not only by personal ambition but by religious 
zeal, such zeal as inflamed Saul when he breathed out 
‘‘ threatenings and slaughter ” against the disciples 
of Christ. Such zeal as has in later days looked 
with a placid and pious satisfaction on the rack and 
stake and . the scourge as the sharp but effectual 
and therefore the beneficent medicines of heresy. 
And so, when Athaliah “saw that her son was dead, 
she arose and destroyed all the seed royal ” of the 
house of Judah; “and Athaliah reigned over the 
land.” Hitherto, two religions had been struggling 
for the mastery in the kingdom. During the reigns 
of her husband and her son the worship of Baal 
had been let in and patronized, but had never form- 
ally become the state religion. Now, a queen half 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


135 


heathen in blood, and wholly heathen in feeling, 
could make it supreme. And if some belief in Jeho- 
vah as a real local divinity, and some cautious regard 
to the national traditions, might induce her to suffer 
the Temple worship to go on, and the Mosaic forms 
to be observed, she could put them at the proper 
point of depression ; and Baal should be Judah’s God. 
Solomon had done much to corrupt the national re- 
ligion. Filthy Astarte and savage Molech had found 
a place in the sacred city. Now Baal comes in 
forms at once splendid and loathsomely sensual. 
“ If there was a holy city, there was also an un- 
holy city within the walls of Zion, and the two were 
striving for the mastery.” Athaliah meant that the 
unholy city should triumph. She cut off all the 
seed royal, some of them, at least, her own grand- 
children. So long as the race of David remained, 
David’s religion would be apt to linger. A few 
helpless children were to be got rid of, and the re- 
sult was secured. They were put to death without 
a pang of remorse; and then Athaliah reigned over 
the land, and her religion reigned with her. The 
Temple stood ; and the Temple service went on for 
those who cared for it. But the court was pagan, 
Jerusalem was a Phoenician capital, Judea was a 
province of Baal’s empire. 

For six years she possessed the throne in peace. 
But ‘^the triumphing of the wicked is .short.” 
When she cut off the seed royal, one seedling es- 
caped. God had said, “ Once have I sworn in my 
holiness that I will not fail David ; ” and it was not 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


136 

in the compass of human power to break the line 
that was to connect David with that “ son of David 
in whom his throne, in glories more than earthly, 
shall be eternal,” “ whose kingdom shall have no 
end.” So too shall that promise of our Lord, “Lo ! 
I am with you always, even unto the end of the 
world,” stand fast, and no might or malice of men or 
devils be allowed to break that chain of many links 
by which the Church’s Bishops are derived in law- 
ful and orderly succession from those to whom the 
first words were spoken. That seedling was silently 
growing into strength under the fostering care of the 
queen’s own step-daughter, his aunt, Jehosheba, the 
high-priest’s wife. Hidden from the eyes of men 
in the chambers and cloisters of the Temple, he was 
waiting till the time should come for his “ showing 
unto Israel.” Without premonition the avenging 
tempest came, while Athaliah was basking in the 
full sunshine of success and security. The high- 
priest had formed his plans wisely and secretly. 
The Temple guard, instructed in the part they had 
to perform, and willing instruments in the overthrow 
of a hateful usurpation, were so disposed as to effec- 
tually prevent all intrusions or interruption. Then 
the royal boy was brought forth, and after being 
crowned and anointed and presented with that di- 
vine Law which was to form his rule of governing, 
was placed on the throne, elevated on a column or 
pillar which the king was wont to occupy on solemn 
occasions. The noise of the music and the shout- 
ing which celebrated her grandson’s coronation 


SOVEI^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


137 


aroused the attention of the queen in the adjacent 
palace. She hastened to the spot ; for she was not 
a woman to flee danger, but to face it ; but it was 
only to see the young king upon his throne, sur- 
rounded by armed men, amid the joyous gratulations 
of those who welcomed in him the recovery of the lost 
line of their ancient sovereigns. By the command of 
the high-priest she was dragged forth from the pre- 
cincts of the Temple and put to death. So, miser- 
ably perished this wretched woman, as her wretched 
mother had perished before her. 

I have three things to say about her, all of which 
I would fain hope, may be made instructive. 

She was a woman among the Sovereigns of Judah 
— this is her distinction. Yet, surely, nothing can be 
more unfeminine than her character and her history. 
She unsexed herself; and with such unsexing, she 
lost all that was lovely and truly honorable in her 
sex, and became monstrous and hideous, while the 
qualities of the sex into whose province she intruded 
became in her the instruments only of injury and 
mischief. Detestable in a man, they were horrible 
in a woman. She lost the true glory of a woman, 
and did not gain the glory of a man. The true 
glory of a woman lies in being truly womanly. The 
glory of everything lies in being that which its 
Creator made it to be, and in not aspiring to be any 
thing else. If it does, it becomes either unseemly 
or pernicious, in its glory. And surely the glory of a 
woman is enough, and she may well be content with 
it. She will, if she is wise ; and she has no occasion to 


138 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


envy man’s glory. Hers is different, but it is not in- 
ferior. What honorable names of women, who 
were women and content to be women, gem the 
pages of history ! And if we look around our own 
circle of observation, who so honored in it as wo- 
men, good, true, womanly women? Who so free 
from the soil and blemish which are the drawback 
in human reputation ? A Christian woman, moving 
serenely in her sphere, a wife, a mother, in all fidelity, 
lovingness, purity, a pattern of patience and good 
works in her domestic relations, an angel of mercy 
and a teacher of all good things in her wider walk,— 
thank God ! such are not hard to find, — is there any- 
thing more beautiful, anything to which the hearts of 
men more gladly do homage ? “ Who can find a virtu- 
ous w^oman ? for her price is far above rubies. The 
heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so 
that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do 
him good and not evil all the days of her life.” 
“She stretcheth out her hand to the poor, yea, she 
reacheth forth her hand to the needy. She openeth 
her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the 
Law of Kindness. She looketh well to the ways of 
her household, and eateth not the bread of idle- 
ness. Her children arise up and call her blessed: her 
husband also, and he praiseth her.” “ Favor is de- 
ceitful, and beauty is vain ; but a woman that 
feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of 
the fruit of her hands ; and let her own works praise 
her in the gates.” Will she gain anything by aspir- 
ing to be an Athaliah, a politician, a statesman, a 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


139 


ruler? Nay, she will suffer unutterable loss. She 
will be a monster; and, if the devil takes advantage 
of her weakness, as he will be apt to do, she will be 
a fiend. For see what a woman who like Athaliah 
will unsex herself and shoot madly from her sphere 
may become — if not worse than a bad man, at least 
far more odious and frightful. The glory of wo- 
men is not found in an Athaliah, or a Semiramis, 
or a Catharine, but in a Hannah, and a Mary. 

This woman mas a zealot^ she was a zealot for her 
religion, she was very religious after her fashion ; 
and she spared no cost and pains to promote the 
interest of that form of religion which she held as 
true. And she believed in it implicitly. She had 
been educated in it. It was ancestral to her. It 
was mingled up with the memories of her childhood 
and her home. The misfortune with her was, not 
that she was not religious, but that her religion was 
wrong. Sincerity did not make her religion good, 
as some shallow reasoners think it can. She wor- 
shipped a god in whose service lust and bloodshed 
were piety ; and the worshipper grows to be like his 
god. So Saul was sincere and zealous when he was 
persecuting God’s saints to death ; and the Atheni- 
ans very religious, when to their innumerable altars, 
they added one “ to the unknown God,” for fear that 
one deity might have been overlooked in their 
pantheon. It is not enough that we are religious ; 
we must look to the quality of our religion. It is 
not enough that we pray much, and make many 
prayers, and are honest in belief and ardent in feel- 


140 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


ing. If our conception of God, and if the religious 
life be not right, it will make us bad and not good, 
worse and not better. The most horrible things in 
history have been perpetrated in the name of religion, 
and in all sincerity of purpose. I bear them record, 
says St. Paul, “ that they have a zeal for God ; but 
not according to knowledge,” enlightened, genuine, 
conformed to the will of God ; suited to the needs 
of your over-spiritual nature. See that God be en- 
throned in your minds in His true ideal, the holy, 
good, the wise, that doeth all things, and doeth 
them well ; and let your thoughts be of Him, your 
worship, your service, be such as befits him, such as 
he . requires, a service of love, of holiness, of pure, 
cheerful, grateful obedience. That will not make 
you a torment and a monster in your religious ear- 
nestness, but will spread over your life a raiment of 
whatsoever is honest, true, pure, lovely, and of good 
report. 

Once more, this woman was a usurper. She had 
rank, and station, and power, and wealth, and splen- 
dor ; but she had no right to any of them. They 
were all ill-gotten, all feloniously obtained, all reach- 
ed by fraud and violence. And what good did they 
do her ? Six years she had them, so far as we know, 
in undisputed possession. But were there no fears 
for their stability, no misgivings about the end? 
What uneasiness dwelt in her bosom as she walked 
in state through the halls of Solomon’s palace ! She 
was Queen of Judah; but by no right, human or 
divine. She had riches, but she had stolen them from 


SOVEREIGN'S OF JUDAH. 


I4I 

her own murdered children. She had power, but if 
there were none left to demand its restoration that 
she knew of, it was because her cruelty had consigned 
them to an untimely grave. Did not their power 
sometimes walk with her, in her magnificence ? And 
then the possession how brief, the end how sud- 
den and how awful ! an unforeseen, a violent, and 
an ignominious death — in one hour a queen, in the 
next a dishonored carcase, cast out as carrion. And 
the soul is gone to its own place, to be with all those 
who have sold themselves to work iniquity. Oh ! 
“ what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul?” Good that is not sought 
uprightly, that is not fairly obtained, is but an illusion 
and a semblance. If it be true in its measure of every 
man that has this world’s goods, that he “walketh in 
a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain,” spe- 
cially is it of him that “ getteth riches and not by 
right.” Such riches do indeed “ perish by evil tra- 
vail.” And though no violent or disgraceful end await 
their possessor, an uneasy conscience and a remorse- 
ful death cleave to him, and they are but preludes 
to those awful self-upbraidings, beyond which are 
the worm that never dies. Be content with what 
God gives you. Be not uneasy because your lot is 
low or your portion small. “ They that will be 
rich fall into temptation and a snare,” and they that 
will be great and powerful or illustrious are in 
scarcely less danger. There is no telling what aw- 
ful crime such desires may yet lead to. What 
other men have done we are capable of doing. Atha- 


142 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


liah tells us, that even the tender, shrinking, sympa- 
thetic nature of woman, for power and splendor, 
may commit deeds of awful atrocity, and barbarous 
cruelty, if once passion and desire are allowed to 
gain the mastery. Pursue right ends by right 
means ; and if ever a wandering wish tempts to a 
different course, crush it as a cockatrice’s egg that 
will by and by break out into a viper. And the love 
of the world in any of its forms is full of such temp- 
tation. Do not let the world be your chief good. 
In that alone is safety. See what bounds in the or- 
dering of Providence circumscribe your own rights, 
and keep rigidly within them. “ Remove not your 
neighbor’s landmark.” See his bounds, too, and 
scrupulously respect them. “ Set your affection on 
things above, not on things on the earth.” “ I have 
seen the wicked in great power, and spreading him- 
self like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and 
lo, he was not ; yea, I sought him, but he could not 
be found. Mark the perfect man, and behold the 
upright : for the end of that man is peace.” 


XII. 


JOASH. 

And Jehoash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord all 
his days wherein Jehoiada the priest instructed him. — II. Kings 
XII : 2. 

Jehoiada, the priest, as he is here called, was the 
high-priest, the successor of Aaron as the head of 
the Levitical hierarchy; and his wife Jehosheba was 
the half-sister of Ahaziah, Joash’s father, being the 
daughter of King Jehoram, by a wife whose name is 
unknown. But though Jehosheba was the child 
of Jehoram, she did not walk in his steps. It may 
be that her mother was a religious woman. And 
then, happily, wickedness is not always or necessarily 
hereditary, and the offspring of evil parents is under 
no fatal necessity of copying their evil example. 
And the prophet tells us “ that if the son seeth all 
his father’s sins which he hath done, and con- 
sidereth, and doeth not such like, he shall not die 
for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live.” 
The Scriptures contain a sufficient number of ex- 
amples of this kind to counteract the disheartening 
idea of any necessity of wickedness as growing out 
of the fatality of birth. A daughter of Jehoram 
even was “a woman that feared the Lord.” Who 
then shall despair of God’s favor on the ground of 
parentage ? A good mother may neutralize the in- 


,144 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


fluence of an evil father. Perhaps, an early alliance 
with the high-priest had kept or restrained her 
from the contagion of Phoenician beliefs and morals; 
for marriage has almost as much to do with the 
character and course of men and women as birth. 
Through the dark period of Athaliah’s power, by 
means of her pernicious influence over her husband, 
her usurpation of the throne after his death, the 
Mosaic worship, though not suppressed altogether, 
was forsaken and discountenanced by the court. 
Still, in the Temple the faithful high-priest kept 
his charge, and the sacred rites of the true religion 
were duly celebrated ; and though “ few came to 
the solemn feasts,” there were yet men in Israel to 
“ sigh and cry for the abominations that were done 
before them.” Meanwhile, the Temple, uncared 
for, fell into disrepair, and the process of dilapida- 
tion seems to have been hastened by violence ; for 
the historian tells us that “ the sons of Athaliah, 
that wicked woman, had broken up the house of 
God,” marred and defaced it by wanton or malicious 
injuries; and also, “that all the dedicated things 
of the house of the Lord did they bestow upon 
Baalim.” Still, in^ the dismantled and forsaken 
edifice did the faithful high-priest continue to exe- 
cute his sacred functions with unshaken faith in God 
and hope of better days. And there the providence 
of God threw into his tiands a treasure far more pre- 
cious than the “ gold of the Temple” or any of its 
ceremonies or adornments, in the person of the royal 
boy Joash, the only surviving descendant of the royal 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


45 


house of David in the line of Solomon. The young 
prince had been snatched from the destroying fury 
of his ruthless grandmother, the miscreant Athaliah, 
by his Aunt Jehosheba, the high-priest’s wife; and 
was securely kept and nurtured in secret in the 
ample courts of the Temple till a fit time should 
come to throw off the hateful usurpation that op- 
pressed the nation, and restore the rightful heir to 
his lineal inheritance. Thus within the very shadow 
of the palace was growing under God’s care an un- 
known branch of the royal house, by whom, in God’s 
good time, his “ faithful oath unto David ” was to be 
secured from failure, and the sceptre of Judah made 
sure till Shiloh should come. The light of David 
had burnt down to its socket, but there it still flick- 
ered. The stem of Jesse was cut down to the very 
roots ; one tender shoot was all that remained ; 
on him rested the whole hope of carrying on the 
lineage of David ; for six years they waited. At 
the end of that time the people, weary of the atro- 
cities and oppressions of Athaliah, were ripe for 
revolution, and Jehoiada felt that he could venture 
to rely upon their co-operation in breaking the 
odious yoke. Joash, a child of but seven years, was 
brought forth from his concealment, exhibited to 
the people as the representative of their ancient 
kings, and solemnly inaugurated as their sovereign. 
Athaliah was put to death, and the reign of the boy 
king began amidst the joyous acclamations and feli- 
citations of the emancipated nation. For years his 
reign must have been but nominal, and the actual 
7 


146 SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 

administration of affairs remained in the hands of 
the wise and conscientious priest, by whom he had 
been preserved in his infancy, and under whose 
tutelage and oversight he grew up to manhood. Nor 
did the salutary influence of these principles and 
counsels terminate even then. As long as Jehoiada 
lived Joash did well, and his reign was eminently 
pure and prosperous. “ He did that which was 
right in the sight of the Lord all the days wherein 
Jehoiada, the priest, instructed him.” His king- 
dom was free from foreign invasions and internal 
discord, and flourished in the arts of peace under 
an upright and paternal government. It pleased 
God in mercy to Israel to prolong this happy con- 
dition of things far into Joash’s reign ; for at least 
two-thirds of it were past when Jehoiada died. And 
it was during this halcyon rest of the nation, in 
which the blessed times of David and Solomon 
seemed to have come back to them, that the work 
was undertaken and executed which sheds the dis- 
tinguishing glory over the reign of Joash among 
those of the kings of Judah, the repairing of the 
Temple, and its restoration to its original beauty 
and perfection. Under the growing ascendency of 
heathenism in the reigns of Jehoram and Ahaziah, 
and still more under the openly idolatrous usur- 
pation of Athaliah, the Temple had suffered from 
neglect and still more from spoliation. Its treasures 
had been given away to invaders ; it had been plun- 
dered by Egyptians and by Arabs ; and it had prob- 
ably been used as a quarry in Athaliah’s time to 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


147 


furnish materials for the Temple of Baal and her 
other costly constructions. It now retained but 
marred and faded remnants of its first glory, and 
dishonored the religion of a people whose proudest 
boast it was that they had the Lord for their God. 
To Joash the Temple must have been peculiar- 
ly dear, as the asylum and nursery of his child- 
hood, and the abode of those who in its courts 
had shielded him from harm, and watched over his 
lonely orphanhood with a more than parental solici- 
tude and tenderness. An early act of his reign, 
doubtless under the advice of the good high-priest, 
was to make provision for the removal of this 
national scandal, and put back the proud shrine 
of the nation, so far as he might, into that condition 
of grandeur and dignity in which his great ancestors 
left it. A pleasing act of gratitude, as well as of 
religion, it was in the young king to restore and 
beautify the courts and cloisters which had formed 
the shelter and play-ground of his hapless child- 
hood. Yet the work went on languidly in the hands 
of the Levites, one cannot determine whether owing 
to the indifference or the inability of the priestly tribe, 
to whom it was at first appropriately committed, so 
that ‘Gn the three and twentieth year of King Je- 
hoash the priests had not repaired the breaches of the 
house.” At last, however, in more efficient hands 
the work was happily consummated, and stood the 
glory of Joash’s reign and of Jehoiada’s administra- 
tion. But now Jehoiada waxed old. He was, in- 
deed, full of days at his death, for “an hundred 


148 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


and thirty years old was he when he died, and they 
buried him in the city of David among the kings,” 
a unique and unexampled honor, yet not unmeet 
for one who had made the king, and who, while he 
lived, was in real power more than the king himself, 
“because,” adds the historian, “ he had done good 
in Israel, both toward God and toward his house.” 

And alas! with Jehoiada’s death came a dismal 
change in Joash. The good genius of his reign de- 
parted with the aged high-priest. Accustomed to lean 
upon his wise and conscientious counsellor, when 
the prop was removed, it appeared that he could no 
longer stand upright. He had no root in himself ; 
his virtue was but parasitical, and when the tree 
died the mistletoe that clung to it withered away. 
Sadly does the last third of his reign compare with 
its earlier portion. A similar contrast there is in sec- 
ular history in the Emperor Nero, before and after 
the death of his tutor, the philosopher Seneca. Alas ! 
how much goodness there is that looks fair, and yet 
is but the child of circumstances, and not of prin- 
ciple. And so, as the result, the reign of Joash 
stands, in one aspect of it, marked with a singular 
honor, in another stained with a remarkable dis- 
grace. The re-edifier of the Temple lived to be the 
murderer of the priest that ministered at its altar. 
The grateful ward of Jehoiada was the destroyer of 
his son ; and now, by the lips of the Son of Man 
himself, the blood of “ Zacharias the son of Bara- 
chias, who was slain between the Temple and the 
altar,” stands coupled with the “ blood of righteous 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


149 


Abel,” and, strange to tell, Jehoash, whose care had 
once restored that Temple and that altar, was his 
slayer, the murderer of his kinsman, of the son of 
his best benefactor, of the head of his religion and 
its priesthood ; and the memory of a king of hope- 
ful indications and beginnings stands branded with 
the mark of Cain, in whose way he went. Joash was 
not possessed of much natural force of character ; 
and religion, albeit he had been for a time its pa- 
tron and protector, had gained no deep lodgment 
in his soul. Deprived of his wonted support when 
the high-priest died, he looked about for another, 
and there was one at hand. The vices of idolatry 
had not died with Athaliah. Doubtless, there were 
many who looked back to the sensuality and license 
of her reign with regret, and were ready to persuade 
her too-yielding successor to emancipate himself 
from the vigorous restraints imposed by his vener- 
ated monitor. Joash was yet young. He died at 
the age of forty-seven : and it was in the twenty- 
third year of his reign that he set about the comple- 
tion of the work on the Temple more vigorously. 
This must have been when he was thirty years old. 
Within a few years of this time the work was fin- 
ished and Jehoiada died. A period of ten years or a 
little more remains for his downfall in character and 
condition. He was in the maturity of his powers, 
when the restraints that had before holden him back 
were removed, and he was left free to follow his own 
royal will. A fatal freedom it proved to be, involv- 
ing shipwreck for time and shipwreck for eternity. 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


150 

Now after the death of Jehoiada came the princes 
of Judah and made obeisance unto the king.” 
They were courtiers ready to flatter him, and by 
flattery to gain their own selfish ends, like the evil 
counsellors of his ancestor Rehoboam. “ Then the 
king hearkened unto them ; and they left the house 
of the Lord God of their fathers,” the house the 
king had restored with so much care and cost, “ and 
hewed groves and idols.” Phoenician superstition and 
filthiness were once more in vogue. The prophets 
warned in vain. At last “ the Spirit of God came 
upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada,” the priest who 
had succeeded to his father’s place and principles, 
and who is called the son of Barachias by our Lord 
in the New Testament, a name of equivalent mean- 
ing — which stood above the people and said unto 
them. Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the com- 
mandments of the Lord that ye cannot prosper? 
Because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath also 
forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and 
stoned him with stones at the commandment of the 
king in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus 
Joash the king remembered not the kindness which 
Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his 
son. And when he died, he said. The Lord look 
upon it and require it.” Athaliah was now indeed 
avenged ; but the wretched monarch in avenging 
her, if that was any part of his motive, covered him- 
self with eternal infamy, and left his name for a 
curse unto God’s chosen. And soon the awful im- 
precations of the dying martyr and the threat of 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


151 

the martyr’s God met their ample fulfilment. Inva- 
sion, defeat, disease, and a bloody death, came in 
quick succession. Hazael, king of Syria, came up 
against him, and, after stripping him of all his trea- 
sures as the purchase of a respite, soon returned, and 
a very great host was delivered into his hand. The 
disheartened and impoverished king was seized with 
great diseases ; and, while languishing on his bed, 
in anguish of body and mind, in the fortress of Millo, 
“ Jozachar the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad the 
son of Shomer, his servants, smote him and he died.” 
“ And they buried him in the city of David, but they 
buried him not in the sepulchres of the kings.” The 
slayer of the son might not sleep with that father 
whose memory he had so ungratefully and atrociously 
dishonored. So did the fair morning, for the want of 
depth and steadfastness of principle, give place to an 
evening of darkness and storm ; and the hopeful signs 
of early youth led into apostasy, crime, misery, dis- 
grace, and ruin. The life of this king is monitory, 
full of solemn warning. 

We see in him what a religion of circumstarices is, 
and of how little value. It stands by props, and 
when the props are withdrawn it totters and falls. It 
has no deep roots well set in the earth that can 
support it, when it is left to depend upon its own 
resources ; and no inward channels of supply that 
can carry into all parts of it the vital current, and 
keep it fresh and living. The religion of Joash was 
but the reflection of Jehoiada’s. It shone in the 
lustre cast upon it by his brightness. But when 


152 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


this sun went down the reflected brightness departed 
with it. Yet the goodness of Joash was both spe- 
cious and useful. For years he stood the apparent 
bulwark of truth against error, of Jehovah’s worship 
against idolatry ; and, from his lofty position, “ a 
city set on a hill that could not be hid,” he was con- 
spicuously the representative of the true God in the 
sight of men. And yet, all the time, “ his heart was 
not right in the sight of God ; ” circumstances and 
not principles made him what he was ; and with 
change of circumstances his life changed its phase, 
and the patron of truth became an idolater and a 
persecutor. All his religion was mechanical and 
external. It was on the outside of the man, and 
did not go down into his heart to possess its con- 
victions, affections, and purposes. It arrayed him, 
but it did not inhabit him. And while, perhaps, he 
was by no means a conscious hypocrite, but was re- 
ligious according to his conception of religion, he 
did but move through a routine of forms, under 
which lay hidden a cold, selfish, and unloving heart. 
The outward life obeyed the mould into which the 
high-priest cast it, but there was not consistency 
and firmness enough in its texture to keep the shape 
when the pressure of the mould was withdrawn. 

And we see in him, also, how liable such spurious 
virtue isy sooner or later., to give zvaj, and expose its 
hollowness. The guardian is removed, enticers and 
flatterers ply their seductive arts ; the heart yields 
and shows its evil bent, and the life falls into sin, very 
often rushes into its excesses. The builder of the 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH 


153 


Temple is the destroyer of the priest. Alas, for that 
religion that depends for its stability upon circum- 
stances ! For circumstances are changeful. This 
world “ never continueth in one stay.” A religious 
education and virtuous association put a fair var- 
nish on the life that passes for goodness. The open 
world dissolves the varnish, and underneath is no- 
thing but deformity. The stream runs quietly in the 
straight channel that is cut for it. The bank gives 
way, and off it gambols in curves, through thickets, 
down dark ravines and foaming rapids. And, not 
unlikely, the life, once emancipated from an un- 
natural restraint, avenges itself on the power that 
kept it in. Who so bold and bitter and cruel as 
a renegade.^ Zechariah, foster-brother, playmate, 
cousin, holy priest of God, painful remembrancer of 
better days, thou shalt die. A lapsed professor of 
godliness is apt to be a strenuous enemy of God. 
And seldom will a life that has clothed itself in 
seemly semblance be allowed to run undetected to 
its close. Providence alters its outward relations, 
and then comes undisguised sensuality or vengeful 
hate, or, as is strangely but not uncommonly the 
case, the two. 

It is a good thing to have religious friends and be 
trained among virtuous associations, and to have 
the watchful eye of a holy affection resting on us in 
our youth, and in our entrance upon the theatre of 
independent action. Such influence may shape our 
lives aright, and make them comely. But alone, 
they are not enough. The grace of God must come 
7 * 


154 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


into our souls with its quickening and renovating 
power, and make us new creatures if we are to be 
permanently godly. Let us not forget to seek it, 
and continually rely upon it. Let parents and 
guardians not forget to invoke its aid in their great 
task, that while they are fashioning the outward 
shape, the Spirit of God may be working truth in 
the inward parts, and that those deep-seated princi- 
ples of faith in the Redeemer, love to God, and de- 
votion to duty may be graven on the soul, which 
are the only effectual safeguards against temptations, 
the only trustworthy assurances of steadfastness, 
perseverance, and continuance in well-doing. If 
you would be really, and permanently good, you 
must put on the new man which is created in right- 
eousness and true holiness. 


XIII. 


AMAZIAH. 

Then Amaziali king of Judah took advice, and sent to Joash, the 
son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying. Come, let us 
see one another in the face. And Joash king of Israel sent to Amaziah 
king of Judah, saying. The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the 
cedar that was in Lebanon, saying. Give thy daughter to my son to 
wife : and there passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon, and 
trode down the thistle. Thou sayest, Lo, thou hast smitten the Edom- 
ites ; and thine heart lifteth thee up to boast : abide now at home ; 
why .shouldest thou meddle to thine hurt, that thou shouldest fall, even 
thou, and Judah with thee? But Amaziah would not hear; for it 
came of God, that he might deliver them into the hand of their ene- 
mies, because they sought after the gods of Edom. So Joash the 
king of Israel went up ; and they saw one another in the face, both 
he and Amaziah king of Judah, at Beth-shemesh, which belongeth 
to Judah. And Judah was put to the worse before Israel, and they 
fled every man to his tent. — II. Chronicles xxv: 17-22. 

The Jewish kings whose lives are written in the 
Scriptures, we are all along to bear in mind, are pic- 
tures, and studied, they become lessons. Each one 
has an individuality and a moral of his own. Let 
us see this morning what can be made of Amaziah. 
He is a man in whom there is good and evil ; and 
the good and evil that are in him are specific. 
The one may serve to us for instruction, and the 
other for warning. The inspired historian says of 
him that “ he did that which was right in the sight 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


156 

of the Lord,” that is instruction, “ but not with a per- 
fect heart,” that is warning — for it made his right 
doing of very little account, as we shall see. He does 
not appear to have been a very wise man, a man of 
very sound judgment or of very firm principles. He 
seems to have been a hardy man, of an adve^iturou'S 
and tineasy nature, ambitious of conquest and mili- 
tary renown, prone to “ meddle to his hurt,” when 
in fact his strength was to sit still,” and his real 
wisdom to cultivate the arts of peace and develop 
and improve the internal resources of his kingdom, 
to abide at home, as the historian phrases it. This 
craving to be a warrior and a conqueror, and the ill- 
judged acts into which it led him, are the great 
blemishes of his character and reign. ‘‘He did that 
which was right in the sight of the Lord,” says the 
historian of the Kings in the parallel narrative, “ yet 
not like David his father : he did according to all 
things as Joash his father did.” Joash his father 
— there probably is a great part of the secret of 
his errors and deficiencies. He had not the advan- 
tage of good descent or of good example and training. 
Joash’s was but a very inconsistent and unstable 
goodness. “ Joash,” says the annalist, “ did that 
which was right in the sight of the Lord, all the days 
wherein Jehoiada the priest instructed him” — did 
right under good guidance, but not when left to him- 
self. There was no root in him, and so he endured 
but for a while. When the good priest was dead, he 
listened to other counsels, the advice of princes, and 
was led away into idolatry and the sins that follow 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


157 


in its train, till at last Jehoiada’s son, that “ Zacharias 
the son of Barachias” of whom our Saviour speaks 
in his solemn invective against the Pharisees, though 
his near relative, and the son of that aunt to whom 
he owed his preservation and all the nurture of his 
early years, was stoned by the king’s command in 
the court of the house of the Lord, and “ slain be- 
tween the temple and the altar.” Amaziah was 
this king’s son, and he imitated his example ; and 
his goodness was of the same partial, dubious, ques- 
tionable character, very little better than not being 
atrociously bad. This must always be borne in 
mind, as we shall be following its effects to the end 
of the history. It was the evil leaven that had come 
into the royal line of Judah in his great-grandmo- 
ther Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, 
and wife of Jehoram, — the bad alloy which the vile 
Phoenician princess wrought in continued to work. 
How long it lasted ! How tenaciously it clung ! 
What mischief it entailed ! Jehoram, who married 
the daughter of Jezebel, Athaliah, died of a loathsome 
plague in his bowels. Ahaziah, the offspring of the 
marriage, was killed by Jehu. Athaliah herself usurp- 
ed the kingdom, and perished in the rebellion that 
upset her usurped authority and set Joash, the law- 
ful heir, upon the throne. Joash was murdered in 
his bed, by enemies. Amaziah, whose case is now 
before us, fled from Jerusalem on account of a con- 
spiracy against him, as we shall see, and was assassi- 
nated at Lachish. His son Uzziah or Azariah was 
smitten with leprosy, when he was strong and his 


158 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


heart was “lifted up to his destruction,” for an act of 
presumption, and sacrilege, in daring to usurp the 
priestly office and burn incense. He was leprous 
unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a “ several 
house,” sequestered from his kingly functions. It 
is a sad but most instructive picture which the house 
of David in those days presents. Strikingly illustra- 
tive of the mischief of “ evil communications,” and of 
the contagious and adhesive quality of evil princi- 
ples, when they gain admittance into a stock or a 
household. 

We have to do this morning with Amaziah, the 
son of Joash, the great-grandson of Jehoram — whose 
wife was Athaliah — the great -great -grandson of 
Ahab and Jezebel, the fifth in descent from that im- 
ported fountain of sin and suffering in the royal 
house of Judah, the Sidonian Queen of Israel. The 
taint, we see, has not run out ; it is still strong, and 
sadly verifies God’s threat to “visit the sins of the 
fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth 
generation of them that hate him.” But we are to 
look at the particular phase which sin and folly as- 
sumed in this link of the evil chain. 

The great failing of Amaziah seems to have been a 
weak but restless ambition. He was always aiming 
to do grand, brilliant things, beyond his power, and 
neglecting to do the simple ordinary things within 
his reach, in the faithful performance of which lay 
his plain duty, his true usefulness, and his real honor ; 
and the measure of success which attended his ef- 
forts in this direction led him on to new undertak- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


159 


ings which involved him in defeat and disgrace. He 
signalized the beginning of his reign by an attack 
upon Edom, to recover the sovereignty over it, which 
his grandfather Jehoram had lost. But he weak- 
ened himself by a measure of worldly policy which 
displeased God. “ He hired a hundred thousand 
mighty men of valor out of Israel for an hundred 
talents of silver.” Israel, by which at this period, 
we are to remember, is only meant the kingdom of 
the ten tribes, was apostate ; and God would not 
have His cause upheld by such aid, or by these de- 
fenders. The mercenaries would ruin the cause they 
came to help. There came a man of God to him, 
saying, O king, let not the army of Israel go with 
thee, for the Lord is not with Israel, to wit, with 
all the children of Ephraim. But if thou wilt go, 
do it, be strong for the battle : God shall make thee 
fall before the enemy : for God hath power to help 
and to cast down. And Amaziah said to the man 
of God, But what shall we do for the hundred talents 
which I have given to the army of Israel? And the 
man of God answered. The Lord is able to give thee 
much more than this.” Men are never losers by 
obeying God, though it be upon a low principle. 
Amaziah had wisdom enough to listen to the admo- 
nition. He sent back his mercenary troops and con- 
ducted his expedition against Edom without them. 
This is what is meant, we suppose, by his doing that 
which was right in the sight of the Lord. No right 
act is ever overlooked even in a bad life. A signal 
victory was the result, and Edom again submitted 


l6o SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 

to Judah’s yoke. But in his absence, the soldiers of 
Israel whom he had sent back, provoked by what they 
regarded as an indignity in the rejection of their 
aid, fell upon some of his cities, and smote three 
thousand men. Here were sown the seeds of new 
troubles. Our successes are sometimes the worst 
things that happen to us. This was not all. With 
Edom’s spoils he brought home Edom’s gods, and 
set them up to be his gods, and bowed down him- 
self before them, and burned incense unto them. 
Thus there were wrapt up in his victory a quarrel 
with his neighbor and an idolatry that displeased 
God. All the subsequent evil would have been 
avoided, if he had been content to stay at home and 
mind his business. He is now settled in his king- 
dom, but alas ! he is also an idolater, and he has ac- 
quired a passion for conquest and renown. He can- 
not keep still and cultivate the arts of peace. There 
is pride, hereditary ambition and bitter revenge in 
his heart, but there is no fear of God in him, to 
check them ; and he does not know that an evil fruit 
of the victory in which he is exulting is that for his 
desertion of God, God has deserted him, and so the 
strength in which he glories is gone, and weakness 
ha% come in its stead. He cannot, I say, sit still 
and cultivate the arts of peace. He must punish 
his neighbor Israel for the wrong done him in his 
absence. His heart is burning with revenge and the 
pride of fancied power. How true it is that “the 
prosperity of fools destroys them.” So he sends to 
Joash, the son of Jehoida, the son of Jehu, king of 


SOVEjREIGNS of JUDAH. l6i 

Israel, and says, “ Come, let us look one another in the 
face.” In other words he proclaims war against him 
and challenges him to the combat. How bitter and 
contemptuous, and yet how wise and monitory is 
the king ! “ The thistle that was in Lebanon, sent 

to the cedar that is Lebanon, saying, Give thy 
daughter to my son to wife. And there passed by a 
wild beast that was in Lebanon, and trode down the 
thistle. Thou sayest, Lo ! thou hast smitten the 
Edomites, and thine heart lifteth thee up to boast : 
abide now at home, why shouldst thou meddle to 
thy hurt? that thou shouldst fall, thou and Judah 
with thee.” The warning was not heeded. On 
proud and wilful hearts admonitions fall with little 
force. The challenge was repeated. So they went 
up and looked one another in the face at Beth-she- 
mesh which belongeth to Judah. “ And Judah was 
put to the Avorst before Israel, and they fled away 
every man to his tent.” Amaziah was taken prisoner, 
the wall of Jerusalem was demolished, and the gold 
and silver and the vessels of the Lord’s house were 
carried to Samaria. There is little else to relate of 
Amaziah. He lived on a few years, of which noth- 
ing memorable is recorded. The story of his reign 
ends thus : “ Now after the time that Amaziah did 
turn away from following the Lord, they made a 
conspiracy against him in Jerusalem ; and he fled to 
Lachish ; but they sent to Lachish after him, and 
slew him there. And they brought him upon horses 
and buried him with his fathers in the city of Judah.” 
And so his restless, feverish, inglorious life and reign 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


162 

were ended, and left to point a moral in the word 
of God till the end of time. 

And surely, that moral is not hard to find. It is 
a lesson of the evils that went with unsanctified suc- 
cess, a practical illustration of the wise king’s saying, 
already quoted, “ The prosperity of fools shall de- 
stroy them.” This man began seemingly well. His 
first work was patriotic, lawful, perhaps commend- 
able, the reduction of a rebellious tributary. He 
alloyed it indeed by a resort to instruments which 
God had not authorized. The Lord reproved his 
folly, and he yielded to the reproof; but there was 
in the submission no principle of fixed and conscien- 
tious obedience to the divine government. Success 
followed, large, illustrious, complete. But the false 
step at the beginning, and the worldly wisdom in 
which it originated, clung to it, and turned it in the 
end into a misfortune. It was an unsanctified effort, 
and, though prosperous, its issue was unblest. It 
awakened resentment and that in turn brought re- 
taliation, and kindled those fires of an unholy ven- 
geance, and a restless ambition, which ended in 
calamity and disaster ; and so the victory was effaced 
* in the defeat that followed. We see what there was 
in this work that rendered all the glory that resulted 
from it an unsanctified glory. It began in a reli- 
ance upon the arm of flesh, and not in God, and 
though that arm was abandoned at God’s bidding, 
it smote in revenge of the desertion, and provoked 
an assault in which finally it gained a signal victory. 
Oh, how much better it would have been for Ama- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


163 

ziah, if he had first of all sought God and committed 
his ways to him, rather than, as he did, begin with 
acting on his own carnal will and worldly wisdom 
only, sowing thus the seeds of a disaster, in which 
all the good that flowed from his later submission 
to divine guidance was overwhelmed and obliterated. 
An error in our beginning, especially if it involves 
religion and moral obligation, is rarely eradicated ; 
and though its mischiefs are averted for a time, they 
will be sure to return at a later period in some hid- 
den form, to torment and vex us with their venge- 
ful plagues. Ah, how little do men consider what an 
element of weakness and failure they are introducing 
into their lives, when they forget God at the outset, 
and lean to their own understanding, however they 
may seem to prosper in it for a time, cloaked from 
themselves and others by whatever decorous tokens 
of reverence for the divine will it may be. Their suc- 
cess is but the prosperity of fools ; and though it may 
put on a temporary show of strength, its “ root shall 
be as rottenness, and its blossom shall go up as dust.” 
Amaziah's early prosperity then was unsanctified 
prosperity, because the fear and service of God did not 
lie at its foundation, though he was not without some 
sense of religion, and some practical regard to its be- 
hests. That is no effectual religion which influences a 
man on some occasions, and does not control him ha- 
bitually. Look now at the fruits of this prosperity, 
the common, the natural results of such prosperity, 
not of Amaziah’s alone, but of ours also, if we seek 
it in his way — idolatry, presumption, final failures. 


164 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


Idolatry. He went into Edom and conquered it, 
and then brought home the idols of Edom, and wor- 
shipped them. That was paying a dear price for his 
victory, a perfectly gratuitous one moreover, for no- 
body asked it of him. And it was a very senseless 
thing, for these idols had just shown their inability 
to protect their worshippers. Yet he adopts them, 
and brings them to Jerusalem, and puts them in the 
place of Jehovah. Probably there was some pomp 
and splendor in their worship that fascinated him, and 
led him to take it to himself, and idolatry is always 
attractive to the unholy. We borrow idols from the 
world. We make them in our hearts, we find them 
in our ways, and fall in love with them ; success and 
prosperity cherish and develop the tendency. We 
worship ourselves as all-wise, all-puissant ; we wor- 
ship our instruments, and “sacrifice to our net.” 
We see the garish show of the world, and fall 
down to it. My brethren, it is very dangerous to 
succeed if we do not remember and serve God. 
It will estrange us further from him. It will bind 
us faster to the worship of the false, unworthy gods 
of the world. Beware! idolatry is destruction. The 
prosperity of fools destroys them. 

Presumption. The appetite which unsanctified 
success begets is insatiable. It grows by that it 
feeds upon. Like the grave, it saith not. It is 
enough. It becomes bold, confident, daring. It 
presumes upon its strength, and fancies that there is 
nothing that it cannot attain, nothing that it cannot 
do. Its spirit is restless, boastful, aggressive. Ama- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


165 

ziali has conquered Edom, and now he must avenge 
Israel’s insult, and conquer that also. The King of 
Israel warned him of his folly, but he would not 
listen. Thou hast conquered Edom. Be content. 
Tarry at home, and mind thine own business. Take 
care of thy kingdom, and the welfare of thy people. 
Why wilt thou meddle to thy hurt ? It was good 
counsel, but it was not heeded. The bold, bad 
spirit that unsanctified success had produced would 
not be quiet. The fire of revenge and ambition must 
find fuel to feed upon. My brethren, this is not 
Amaziah, it is human nature. There is nought in 
it peculiar to him, we share it with him. Let a 
man in whom religion has not its proper ascendency 
have his way, and he always grows bold, arrogant, 
rapacious. His desire rapidly increases. There is 
nothing that he will not aspire after, nothing that he 
will not essay to achieve. “He is a proud man, 
neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his de- 
sire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied.” 
Alexander conquers the world, and weeps for other 
worlds too. Ah, brethren, there is nothing that 
will still conquer and satisfy the heart but God and 
his service. A restless, insatiable craving, that 
grows with success, and is hungrier the more it is 
fed — this is the fruit of ungodly prosperity. Is it 
not a destruction ? Beware ! surely the prosperity 
of fools destroys them. 

Ultimate and incurable failure. “ The triumphing 
of the wicked is short.” The exultation is the pre- 
lude of a downfall, the more dismal and complete 


66 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


for the previous eminence. Thou hast lifted me 
up,” says the Psalmist, “and cast me down.” 

‘‘ And thou, to make my fall more great, 

Didst lift me up on high.” 

How much more was Amaziah’s defeat by Israel 
to him, because of his prior victory over Edom, 
coming as it did upon him in the exulting flush of 
gratified ambition, and the confident expectation 
of continued victory. This again is not Amaziah, 
but man. There is no real, permanent success to 
the ungodly. In every success there is hidden a 
defeat, in every achievement a failure. All that is 
glorious and great about him is a “ fading flower.” 
He is but a gilded bubble that quickly bursts, an in- 
flated film, painted with iris, that shortly collapses 
and disappears. He may have reverses in life. Pro- 
bably he will. But if he does not, death comes, and 
what a reverse is that ? his gains, his achievements, 
his honors, buried in the dust of the grave, himself 
a wreck, naked in the presence of God. Do you 
crave such a prosperity ? God forbid ! “ Seek first 

the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all 
these things shall be added unto you.” 


XIV. 


UZZIAH. 

Sixteen years old was Uzziah when he began to reign, and he 
reigned fifty and two years in Jerusalem. — II. Chronicles xxvi: 3. 

Let us see what we can make of Uzziah this morn- 
ing. We will get this king before us as distinctly 
as we can, and study him. He has been dead at 
least twenty-five hundred years, but his portrait, 
painted in colors that can never fade by the unerring 
pencil of inspiration, remains ; and in it we may see 
the man, and estimate his value as a model or an 
admonition. The author of the Second Book of 
Kings calls him Azariah. Uzziah is probably only 
Azariah contracted. 

We hardly dare to call him a good man, but he cer- 
tainly was not a very bad one. The history records 
but one bad action of him; and that was one which, 
in our day, would be generally accounted a venial 
offence, scarcely an offence at all. He intruded into 
the priesthood, and on a single occasion under- 
took to minister at God’s altar. God treated the 
offence with great severity, as though it were in his 
eyes a crime of magnitude. It mattered not that 
Uzziah was a king, and, under the theocratic consti- 


i68 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


tution of the Jewish monarchy, the earthly head of 
the Church. A king without a sacerdotal com- 
mission is no more a minister than a private man. 
Might does not make right, any more than popu- 
lar notions of freedom and equality. David must 
not intrude .into Aaron’s office, any more than 
Aaron into his. Uzziah was smitten with a lep- 
rosy, and passed the remainder of his days in se- 
clusion, and the government till his death was ad- 
ministered in his name by a regency. Crown, 
palace, sceptre he was forced to lay aside, and 
though still nominally the sovereign, he dwelt in a 
“ several house ” — shut up in a retirement, which, 
though it may have been royally adorned and splen- 
did, no appliances could render aught but a virtual 
imprisonment, and Jotham his son was over the 
king’s house, judging the people of the land ” in 
the father’s stead. 

Uzziah was but sixteen years old when his father 
Amaziah was assassinated, and he succeeded to the 
throne. This was his misfortune, and, coupled with 
the remarkable successes that attended the early part 
of his career, may account for the presumption that 
brought his happiness to so sudden and disastrous a 
close. For power and prosperity are wont to intoxi- 
cate youthful brains. At first “he did that which 
was right in the sight of the Lord.” Like his grand- 
father Joash, he had a wise counsellor and guide in 
the high-priest, and as long as he followed his direc- 
tions he did well. “ He sought God in the days of 
Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAfl. 


169 

God : and as long as he sought the Lord, God made 
him to prosper.” Success crowned all his enterprises, 
and very signally, till he committed the fatal error 
that blasted his reign and his life. “ He built Eloth, 
and restored it to J udah.” This was a port on the Red 
Sea, from which Solomon had carried on his lucra- 
tive traffic with the East. Thus, he resuscitated and 
strengthened the commercial interests of his king- 
dom. He was also a brave and victorious warrior. 

He went forth and warred against the Philistines, 
and brake down the wall of Gath, and the wall of 
Jabneh,and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities about 
Ashdod, and among the Philistines. And God helped 
him against the Philistines and against the Arabians 
that dwelt in Gur-baal, and the Mehunim. And the 
Ammonites gave gifts to Uzziah, and his name spread 
abroad even to the entering in of Egypt; for he 
strengthened himself exceedingly.” He gathered 
a large army, fortified Jerusalem strongly, and pro- 
vided a large store of weapons, and all the imple- 
ments and resources of war. And he was equally 
assiduous and active in promoting works of internal 
improvement. “ He built towers in the desert, and 
digged many wells ; for he had much cattle both in 
the low country and in the plains ; husbandmen 
also, and vine-dressers in the mountains and in Car- 
mel ; for he loved husbandry.” Surely Judah might 
congratulate itself upon its active, efficient, enlight- 
ened, prosperous young sovereign. The palmy days 
of Solomon and David seemed coming back, and 
the disgraces and failures of preceding reigns about 
8 


170 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


to be wiped away. And so, says the historian, 
waxing eloquent with his theme, “his name spread 
far abroad, for he was marvellously helped, till he 
was strong.” It is certainly so far a beautiful pic- 
ture. 

And yet it appears that all this time the skilful 
painter of this series of royal portraits is in effect, if 
not in purpose, only touching up the outer edges of 
his picture so brightly, so artfully working in his 
brilliant lights and colors, in order to render the 
black spot in the centre, which is to be its character- 
istic and distinctive feature, the darker and more 
conspicuous. That centre is Uzziah ; and all the 
beauty around it is but a fringing outskirt, serving 
to heighten the effect by contrast. As a king, he 
looks well. There are about him unequivocal signs 
of ability and usefulness. He acts his part in the 
stage of life nobly. He fills his high office with 
credit to himself and with benefit to the nation. 
And in such capability as he has shown there is 
much promise for the future. If his course is pro- 
longed, to what may it not attain ? There is even 
a seeming, perhaps a real goodness in him, while 
under the tutelage of the good high-priest. But 
prolonged and uniform prosperity, especially when 
united with high place and the ostentation and sub- 
serviency that inevitably cling to its skirts, is a 
severe trial, which none but a robust and hardy vir- 
tue can long endure. Uzziah’s goodness gave way 
under it. Not content with his kingly honors, he will 
fain be a priest also. He is unwilling to admit that 


SOVEI^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


171 

there is any important thing in his kingdom that he 
cannot do, any honorable function that he may not 
discharge. It seemed a disparagement and limita- 
tion of his supremacy. Perhaps he argued that 
priestly powers were inherent in royalty, and that in 
exercising them he was but reviving suspended 
rights, and bringing back the usage of primitive 
times. The king was the priest of the nation in 
patriarchal days, as in the case of “ Melchizedek, 
king of Salem, priest of the most high God,” and 
there would be no lack of flatterers to applaud his 
purpose, for the opinions of kings easily find advo- 
cates and supporters. And so “ when he was strong,” 
says the narrator — notice, it is strength that makes 
men presumptuous and arrogant and daring — “ his 
heart was lifted up to his destruction : for he trans- 
gressed against the Lord his God, and went into the 
Temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of 
incense. And Azariah the priest went in after him ” 
— the high-priest Zechariah had died, but had left a 
worthy successor in his son Azariah — “ and with 
him fourscore priests of the Lord, that were valiant 
men ; and they withstood Uzziah the king and said 
unto him. It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, 
to burn incense unto the Lord, but to the priests, 
the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn in- 
cense ; go out of the sanctuary; for thou hast tres- 
passed ; neither shall it be for thine honor from the 
Lord God.” Bold words from subjects to their sov- 
ereign. Brave, true-hearted, faithful men, the priests 
that spake them ; one is reminded of St. Ambrose 


1/2 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


shutting the doors of the cathedral of Milan in the 
face of the Emperor Theodosius, and of Bishop Lati- 
mer discoursing in the presence of Henry VIII., in 
profane history. “Then Uzziah was wroth,’’ the nar- 
rative proceeds, “ and had a censer in his han^i to burn 
incense : and while he was wroth with the priests, 
the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the 
priests in the house of the Lord, from beside the in- 
cense altar. And Azariah, the chief priest, and all the 
priests looked upon him, and behold, he was leprous 
in his forehead, and they thrust him out from thence, 
yea, himself hasted also to go out, because the Lord 
had smitten him.” 

And now hear the sequel: “And Uzziah the 
king was a leper unto the day of his death, and 
dwelt in a several house, being a leper ; for he 
was cut off from the house of the Lord ; and Jo- 
tham his son was over the king’s house, judg- 
ing the people of the Lord.” Wretched eclipse 
of bright hopes and cheering promises ! Miser- 
able termination of a fair and successful begin- 
ning ! And all because a man in his heady pride 
and grasping ambition could not be content with 
a position and a sphere grand, dignified, and ample 
enough to satisfy every reasonable desire; but must 
grasp at more; and because, moreover, a man not 
lawfully called and appointed to it would presume 
to usurp that sacred office, which none, however 
high in place, or abundant in gifts, can innocently 
and safely assume but he that is called of God, as 
was Aaron. 


SOVEJ^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


173 


Let us reverse the order of these propositions and 
consider them consecutively. They make up the 
moral of Uzziah. 

1. The instance before us illustrates forcibly the 
sacredness of the priesthood, and the danger of an 
unauthorized intrusion on its peculiar functions. 
Uzziah was a king, but this did not make him any- 
thing more than a private member of the sacred so- 
ciety, of which it constituted him the guardian and 
protector, and, to a limited extent, and in subordi- 
nation to the divine law, in external things, its ruler. 
He was no more a priest by virtue of his kingly dig- 
nity than the lowest of his subjects. But his act 
in contravention of this truth, in taking upon him 
to do that which none but a priest might do law- 
fully, was a sin of all the greater magnitude, be- 
cause his exalted station gave his conduct greater 
notoriety and influence. Yet if the king in his ele- 
vated sphere might be his own minister in sacred 
things, and by virtue of no right inherent in his royal 
office, it might be hard to show that any other man, 
in equal want of authority, might not with equal 
propriety perform the duties of the ministry in his 
humbler station. And, on the other hand, if in 
them it would be a usurpation, no reason could be 
given why it should be accounted anything better 
than a usurpation in him. That Uzziah was a king 
did not alter the case, unless sovereign power be a 
remedy for all defects of title, in divine -as well as in 
human things ; but it did add to the criminality of 
the act, because it increased its notoriety, and ren- 


174 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


dered its influence more extensive and pernicious. 
All Israel might follow the evil example. Moses 
himself had called the nation a “ kingdom of priests,” 
and whatever exclusive poAver had been secured to 
the tribes of Levi, could be plausibly explained away 
by some ingenious sophistry, such as ambition can 
generally find to justify its flights, in favor of the 
broader grant which the words in their literal mean- 
ing might seem to convey. There are theories and 
systems that rest on weaker foundations. Thus the 
act of Uzziah, however he might seek to cover it by 
a claim of prerogative, did in fact involve a virtual 
abrogation of the priestly office, and a defiance of 
the decree to which the older rebellion of Korah 
had given occasion, that no “ stranger, which is not 
of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer incense be- 
fore the Lord.” If it was not rebuked, the barrier 
which hedged in the sacred calling would be broken 
down, and all the benefits which God proposed to 
confer upon the Church and upon mankind by its 
institution be dissipated and lost. It was rebuked in 
the person of Uzziah, signally, impressively, awfully ; 
and the leprous king, that aspired to be a priest 
without a divine calling and commission, stands 
a warning to all ages that men are not to take it 
upon them to “ minister for men in things pertain- 
ing to God,” without a clear and well-authenticated 
commission, on penalty of his awful displeasure 
Where the act is there the displeasure is, and as 
long as the act is prolonged the displeasure continues. 
Time can never sanctify or make valid that which 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


175 


began in disorder and self-will, though it may cover 
it with a show of venerableness and dignity. A 
chain grows no stronger by lengthening, if its first 
link is not properly attached. And though now no 
opening in the earth, or leprosy in the forehead 
marks God’s anger as of old, because God no longer 
speaks to men supernaturally, an attentive observa- 
tion of the signs of the times may perhaps discover 
proof of it in tokens scarcely, if at all, less unambigu- 
ous and decisive: in division and instability, in end- 
lessly multiplying schism, in the decay of sound 
doctrine, and the substitution of fitful paroxysms of 
religious feeling for a steady and equable flow of 
spiritual life. We do not believe that the Christian 
ministry is any less divine than the Levitical priest- 
hood, or that the commission it bears is less clear 
and definite. The conclusion is, that the intrusion 
into it, an usurpation of its powers, or a violation of 
its order, be it by prince or peasant, by scholar or 
unlearned, by good men ignorantly, or by evil men 
presumptuously, cannot be anything else but offen- 
sive to God, and fruitful of mischief to mankind. 
Nay, as the Gospel is holier, purer, more perfect, 
the corrupting and marring of its institutions must 
be so much the more criminal and injurious. God 
may deal graciously with individuals and bodies un- 
consciously and involuntarily involved in the evil, 
and gather among them bright gems in the day when 
he makes up his jewels ; but the act in which it be- 
gan, and all by which it is prolonged, he will always 
discover and frown upon. And while this is so, 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


176 

King Uzziah, leprous at the altar in his unlawful of- 
fering of incense, will continue to be to the Church 
and the world a profitable and instructive object of 
contemplation. 

II. And now to look also at our subject in that 
larger vi.ew of it which I have suggested above. 
We have all our sphere and our calling, and our 
honor and usefulness largely depend upon our 
understanding what it is and keeping in it. Its 
bounds are sufficiently well defined if we will look 
for them, and in getting beyond them lie much sin 
and disgrace. The good order and peace of society, 
and the happiness and improvement of individuals, 
are much furthered by a regard for them, much 
hindered by a neglect of them. In that beautiful 
and expressive similitude of the human body under 
which St. Paul describes the various offices and 
functions of men in the Church of God, he forcibly 
portrays the misery and feebleness which arise from 
any interference of one member in the province and 
work of another. It is so in every social aggre- 
gation : the Church, the State, the family, and what- 
soever other alliance men may enter into for mutual 
helpfulness and comfort. And therefore God has 
thrown around these relations a sacredness, and 
made the breach or disregard of them a violation of 
his own holy law, and a rebellion against his own 
sacred authority. The Apostle, writing by inspira- 
tion, puts “ busy-bodies ” in “other men’s matters ” in 
company with murderers and thieves and offenders 
against the precepts of domestic purity ; we are to 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


177 


“ submit ourselves to every ordinance of man for the 
Lord’s sake,” to obey “ magistrates,” and always 
to remember that “ the powers that be are ordained 
of God.” In the Church we are to obey them 
that are over us in the Lord, and, in the family, the 
child is to submit to the parent, the wife to duly 
respect the headship of the husband. We cannot 
all be chief. The result would be as monstrous and 
harmful as the absorption of all the limbs into the 
head. Nor are those in governing places to forget 
that they are under equal obligation to respect the 
rights of those inferior powers, which in their place 
rule by a right as divine as their own. The hus- 
band is to “give honor unto the wife,” the parent to 
the child, the magistrate to the citizen, the bishop 
to the inferior minister, the minister to the private 
Christian ; “yea,” says the Apostle, “ all of you be 
subject one to another,” and “ honor all men.” The 
sun must not leave his supreme brightness to run in 
the orbit of an attendant planet. The system would 
be a wreck at once. Uzziah was a very good king, 
but he lost all honor when he undertook to play the 
priest ; a sceptre became him ; a censer made him a 
leper. You would gain nothing by climbing up 
into the pulpit, and I do no good by giving or- 
ders in your ships, offices, parlors, and kitchens. 
The effect would only be that “ envying and strife ” 
in which is “confusion and every evil work.” Nor 
is the inconvenience and discomfort the worst of it : 
look at the sin ; it is rebellion against God. God has 
set us in our places. To stay in them, to be content 
8 * 


1/8 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


with them, and patiently, modestly, and faithfully to 
do the duty that pertains to them, is the obedience 
he asks — the measure of our service, and our salva- 
tion if faith work in it. If we will not, there will 
be a leprosy upon us, a worse leprosy than Uzziah’s, 
a leprosy of the soul, a leprosy that will consume us 
in everlasting death. 


XV. 


JOTHAM. 


So Jotliam became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the 
Lord his God, — II. Chronicles xxvii: 6. 

His ways in the main were right ; they bore the 
divine inspection ; they obtained the divine approval. 
And they were not such by a happy accide7tt^ by a 
fortuitous coincidence; with God’s mind they were 
such by preparation, by foresight, pains, and inten- 
tion on his part ; “ he prepared his ways.” And this 
preparation of his ways made him mighty, we are 
told, powerful in government, successful in war, a 
strong sovereign, a potent warrior. His ways were 
prepared before the Lord. Moreover, they bore the 
divine inspection, because they were fashioned under 
the eye of God, and carefully moulded in such a 
manner as to endure its notice and scrutiny. God’s 
mind and will was the standard to which they were 
purposely adjusted. He set God before him, and in 
fashioning his course of life he had reference to 
God’s presence and observation and mind. He was 
not of those who are “ without God in the world,’.’ 
living by no rule or principle, or by some plan of 
their own devising, or by one dictated merely by hu- 
man opinion or worldly fashion. God was a reality to 


l8o SOVEREIGNS OE JUDAH. 

this man, and influential reality ; not a mere sen- 
timent, that lay supine as a barren meditation or as 
the luxury of poetic thought; but a very solemn, 
weighty,. and operative fact. It governed him, he 
“prepared his ways” in view of it, and it entered 
into them as a shaping and controlling force, and 
made them what they were, godly ways, ways con- 
formed to God’s will, directed to God’s service, at 
least as to their main spirit and interest. Hence he 
acquired the reputation which the sacred historians 
accord to him. “ He did that which was right in the 
sight of the Lord,” and so he is numbered among the 
good kings of Judah. Yet, mark, his goodness was 
not eminent, not like that of his descendants and 
successors, Josiah and Hezekiah. The kingdom was 
corrupt, and he did not do much to amend it ; the 
Church was corrupt, and he did not do much to puri- 
fy it. There were drawbacks to his goodness — alas! 
to what goodness are there not drawbacks — yet in 
him the drawbacks were somewhat serious and 
marked, rather uncommon drawbacks. He was good 
as his father Uzziah was good, the historian tells 
us ; yet no one great stain rests upon his history like 
that which deforms Uzziah’s, no presumptuous in- 
trusion into priestly functions that brought leprosy 
upon him. Still, as his father’s goodness was imper- 
fect and maimed, so was his. It did not rise to any 
high pitch of heroism, or performance, or spirituality. 
He was not a reformer, when a reformer was much 
needed ; not energetic in piety, when piety was gen- 
erally unnerved. He was an average good man ; 


SOVEJ^EIGNS OF JUDAH. igi 

one of the rank and file, and not a captain, when the 
times wanted a captain, and it was the king’s place 
to be a captain. One piece of service for God of 
his is alone thought worthy to be recorded : “ He 
built the higher gate of the house of the Lord.” 
But on the other hand it was stated that “ the peo- 
ple did yet corruptly; ” and the implication is, that 
what he might have done to restrain or correct them, 
he did not do. “ Howbeit the high places were 
not removed ; the people sacrificed and burnt incense 
still in the high places.” Yet this blemish attaches 
to his reign in common with almost all the reigns 
of good kings. Only the zeal of a Hezekiah could 
grapple with that inveterate and antiquated evil. 
There were high places where the true God was wor- 
shipped, only it was done irregularly, because sacri- 
fices could lawfully be offered nowhere but on the 
altar in the temple at Jerusalem. The offence was 
comparatively venial, and was so treated. Most good 
kings contented themselves with pulling down the 
high places of idols, and letting these high places of 
Jehovah remain, though they were unauthorized. 
In the language of Bishop Hall, “ The kings abjured 
impiety, but winked at error.” There is, however, 
another statement in regard to Jotham that is more 
difficult to understand. “ Howbeit, he entered not 
into the temple of the Lord.” How could this be 
in the case of a man of whom yet it is said that “ he 
prepared his ways before the Lord his God ” ? It can 
hardly be that such a man neglected the worship of 
God in the temple altogether. The only sense that 


i 82 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


can be given to the words consistent with this gen- 
eral statement is, that he did not enter into the house 
of the Lord as his father Uzziah had done in the 
character of a priest ; he did not imitate his father’s 
sacrilegious conduct in usurping the functions of the 
priesthood in the house of God. The leprosy, the 
awful memorial of his father’s great crime, deterred 
him from its repetition, and kept him back from 
thinking that a king in God’s house could be any- 
thing but an humble worshipper there like the mean- 
est of his subjects. No high commendation is be- 
stowed upon this sovereign ; no one act of flagrant 
sin is charged upon him. His religious character 
stands fair on the sacred page. It is great praise for 
every man simply to say “ that he prepared his ways 
before the Lord his God.” 

And therefore he became mighty.” This was his 
temporal reward. The account of this king’s reign 
is brief, so that we know not much of what his might 
consisted in. Indeed it was not a momentous reign. 
No great result hinged upon it. For the- most part 
it was quiet and uneventful. Yet such reigns are 
happy, happy for the sovereign, happy for the peo- 
ple. And the might that is ascribed to him lay 
chiefly in the benign pressure of his authority and 
the willing obedience of his subjects. It is war and 
commotion that make material for history. And 
the periods of which the historian has least to say 
are those of which mankind have most reason to be 
thankful. His reign lasted sixteen years, but his 
actual administration of the kingdom was much 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 183 

longer, as he ruled over it as regent from the time 
that his father Uzziah became a leper, and dwelt in 
a “ several house,” and was secluded from the of- 
fices of government. And his reign was in its out- 
ward affairs prosperous. Besides building the high 
gate of the house of the Lord, which has been 
already mentioned, we are told that “ in the wall of 
Ophel,” which was the bluff or eminence jutting out 
from the southeastern corner of Jerusalem at the 
junction of the valleys of Kidron and Hinnom, “ he 
built much,” thus strengthening the defences of the 
city. And it is also recorded of him by the histo- 
rian that “he built cities in the mountains of Judah, 
and in the forests he built castles and towers.” His 
reign was peaceful in the main, not disturbed by 
intestine commotions or foreign hostilities. One 
war alone is recorded as having occurred in it, and 
in that he was triumphant. He fought also with 
the king of the Ammonites, and prevailed against 
them. And the children of Ammon gave him the 
same year an hundred talents of silver, and ten 
thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand of 
barley. “ So much did the children of Ammon pay 
unto him, both the second year and the third.” As he 
was but twenty-five years old at the time of his ac- 
cession, he could have been but a youth when his 
regency began some years before, upon the retire- 
ment of his father from active life. And when his 
day had hardly reached its meridian, it ended. He 
died at forty-one. “And Jotham slept with his 
fathers, and they buried him in the city of David ; 


SO VEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


1 34 

and Ahaz, his son, reigned in his stead.” The great 
prophet Isaiah began his ministry the very year that 
he began to rule in his own independent right ; but 
we do not find in his prophecies any distinct allu- 
sions to this king or his administration. Yet doubt- 
less the prophet’s influence must have been felt as a 
support of his righteous course, and materially have 
aided him in maintaining that preparedness of heart 
in God’s sight which made his life right in God’s 
esteem, and infused vigor and efflciency into his gov- 
ernment of the nation. 

And now what shall we learn from Jotham for our 
own practical guidance and improvement? The 
gist of his life lies in this text : “ He prepared his 
ways before the Lord his God,” therefore “he be- 
came mighty.” He is thus at once our example and 
our encouragement. 

His life, if not very illustrious or distinguished in 
the amials of the world, had some power in it ; it was 
not ^ cypher ; it told upon his generation ; it had a 
measure of force and influence ; it achieved some- 
thing, it accomplished something, it did a work for 
God and for man ; there was an impelling strength 
in it, and it was not a failure, but in its degree a suc- 
cess ; and the reason of this was that “ he prepared 
his ways before the Lord his God,” that he kept 
God in mind, and did not undertake to live without 
him or ignore him in his course of action, but took 
some care to make his ways such that they would 
bear His inspection in the principles, and motives, 
and ends that suggested and controlled them, and to 


SOVEI^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


185 


be sure that they were such as would please Him, and 
secure His approbation. Every such life is mighty, 
has in it an element of force that tells: without it a 
man’s life, whatever great things it may boast, what- 
ever great appearances it may put on, is intrinsically 
weak, rests on no solid foundation, accomplishes no 
substantial success. “ The world passeth away, and 
the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God 
abideth forever.” For to be strong in God’s sense, 
and in the world’s, are different things. The great 
things that worldly strength does are in God’s sense 
nothings, while the things that God’s strength en- 
ables us to do, though in the world’s sense small, 
are in His sense somethings, and may be account- 
ed more, and justly, than vast and stupendous do- 
ings that have not God in them, and, for the want 
of Him, are in their splendor dust and ashes ; while 
with Him the feeble shall be as David; and they 
who are “ strong in the Lord and in the power of his 
might,” under the mean guises of their lives work 
out imperishable and glorious results. 

This preparing one’s ways before the Lord our 
God — what is it, then ? 

First, It is the remembrance and recognition of 
God. And to how many who are not atheists in their 
creeds, is there no such remembrance, no such recog- 
nition. What to them is it that God is? They 
do not keep the fact of his being in their mind. He 
does not enter into their habitual circle of thought. 
The world to them would be just what it now is if 
his being was expunged from it. They would ex- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


1 86 

perience no great deprivation ; life would not be 
materially different to them if he were taken away. 
God is to them a dead idea. They do not habitually 
recur to it. It does not move their feelings. It 
does not actuate their conduct. But if God be ha- 
bitually thought of, and viewed as a living reality, 
a whole troop of new ideas, thoughts, sentiments, 
considerations come into the life. The world is 
transfigured and spiritualized. The essential princi- 
ple of religion, is “Remember now thy Creator.” 

Again. It is to have regard to God’s will. God 
has a law, and governs us by rules, and thus to re- 
member God is to remember God’s law. And then 
at once, the life, as it were, crystallizes around this 
centre, this nucleus. It takes form, and a determi- 
nate form ; and, from being the spurt of caprices or 
circumstances, dictated to it by its own vagrant 
impulses or the opinions floating around it, it takes 
a determinate shape, and conforms to a fixed pat- 
tern, and so gains stability, firmness, regularity, and 
persistence. For it has a directory to which it can 
always resort, a test by which it can always deter- 
mine its condition. Let others do as they please, 
and be tossed about by the variable tides of fashion, 
carried hither and thither by the winds of fickle 
opinion and interest ; he has one question to ask, 
“Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” — one 
rule to obey, “ the good, and acceptable, and per- 
fect will of God.” 

07 ice more. It is to seek God’s favor. Aims in- 
ferior there are, a plenty on every side. The fear of 


SOVEREIGN'S OF JUDAH. 


187 


man or his approbation solicits us with threats of 
harm or offers of advantage. The pleasure of 
speedy gratification allures us by addressing its of- 
fers and promises to our natural passions, inclina- 
tions, and desires. The world presents its baits in 
many forms of attractive good, specious shows of 
benefit, heights of honor to be climbed by easy 
steps, treasures of wealth to be gained by moderate 
endeavor, stores of knowledge whose very pursuit 
is sweet, and rich enjoyment as the fruit of success 
in all their lines of aspiration. But these are world- 
ly ends. He that knows God knows that his 
pleasure is life, “ that in keeping his commandments 
there is great reward,” and that He is the only good, 
permanent and imperishable. This he chooses, and 
his heart is glad. The approving eye of God is the 
solace of this life, the hope of the life to come. 
This then is its principle, its rule, and its aim ; this 
it is to prepare one’s ways before the Lord our God. 

And where it is, there will be might ; the man will 
have a strength in him that will work out something 
in his life, and make it in its sum a success. Not 
the might of a king like Jotham, or of any high and 
influential position in society necessarily ; but there 
will be a strength in it that will make it do some- 
thing, and that a thing to be respected among men, 
and oh, how much greater a thing than that ! to be 
laid up among God’s eternal treasures. 

There will be courage in it, the courage of a fixed 
persuasion that the rule it follows is right, and the 
good it aims at a reality, and the principle that 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


1 88 

works in it adequate to all its demands and exigen- 
cies, that will keep it from vacillation and discour- 
agement, or yielding to external intimidations, and 
enable it, amidst clouds and sunshine, trouble and 
delight, alike to say : 

“ I argue not 

Against Heaven’s hand or will, nor bate a jot 
Of heart or hope ; but still bear up, and steer 
Right onward.” 

There will be efficiency in it ; it will do some- 
thing ; it will produce effects. It will not be wasted 
in “ beating the air.” It will “ fight not as uncertain- 
ly ; ” it will not be consumed in desultory labors 
without connection and unity, in random strokes 
without definiteness and coherence. Its labors will 
be concentrated, and so will tell. Its meaning will 
speak in St. Paul’s words, “this one thing I do ; ” 
and being always directed to one end, by one rule, 
in one principle of action, the end being the glory 
of God and the favor that cometh from him only, 
it will, in all the multifarious small doings that occu- 
py it, contribute to its design, as the many strokes on 
the hot iron upon the anvil bring it in the end “ to an 
excellent work.” Such a man is certain to be use- 
ful ; certain to bring something to pass in his earth- 
ly existence ; certain to leave the impression that 
he has brought something to pass that is an appre- 
ciable element in the sum total of profitable human 
activity. 

There will be success, for is not this success which 
I have just described? This is what he aimed to 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


189 


do, and has done ; what he aimed to be, and has be- 
come. He is no abortion, no failure, nothing that 
has been in vain ; but a good, well-developed, com- 
plete man, that has served his generation according 
to the will of God, filled an honorable place in the 
economy of social life, and secured a meed of praise 
from all whose praise is worth the having. And 
then when Christ “ shall sit upon the throne of his 
glory,” then shall come to him from “ the excellent 
glory ” the voice, “ Well done, good and faithful ser- 
vant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” 


XVI. 


AHAZ. 

This is that king Ahaz. — II. Chronicles xxviii : 22, 

Among the kings of Judah there are perhaps none 
worse than Ahaz, none more daringly and atro- 
ciously wicked. There is an emphasis in the brevity 
of our text that points out this evil eminence : “ This 
is that king Ahaz.” Who but he was capable of 
such deeds as the historian has to narrate? 

Ahaz was the son of Jotham, a good king, who 
ruled long : first as regent, during the protracted se- 
clusion of his father, Uzziah, on account of his lep- 
rosy, and afterwards as king himself. Jotham’s 
goodness, however, as we have lately seen, seems to 
have been only of an average sort, not distinguished 
by any eminent attainments, services, or achieve- 
ments. Yet it is said of him that “he prepared his 
ways before the Lord his God,” and therefore “ he 
became mighty.” And this is praise with which a 
man may well be content of this good king. Ahaz 
was the evil son, intensely evil. God-defying, mis- 
chievous, bold, and energetic in his iniquity. How 
wickedness reached such an extraordinary develop- 
ment in him does not appear. Who his mother was 
neither of the histories that record his reign tell us. 
If Jotham had a bad wife, his weak goodness may 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


I9I 


have easily been neutralized by the corrupt example 
and influence of a wicked woman. So it was, at any 
rate, that Ahaz was bad, very bad — so bad that his 
name became a sort of proverb of badness. His 
father died when he was but twenty years old, and 
at that immature age he ascended the throne to en- 
counter the temptations of power and wealth which 
none but well-settled principles can successfully sur- 
mount. Doubtless, there hung around the young 
king a crowd of satellites and sycophants, ready to 
flatter and debauch him, like those who so fatally 
misled his ancestor Rehoboam. He reigned sixteen 
years, and they were throughout years of abomina • 
tion and disaster. The historian says of him that 
he did not that which was right in the sight of the 
Lord his God, like David his father. But he walked 
in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his 
son to pass through the fire, according to the abomi- 
nations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from 
before the children of Israel. “ He sacrificed and 
burnt incense in the high places and in the hills and 
under every green tree.” He “ made also molten 
images for Baalim.” “ He burnt incense in the val- 
ley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in 
the fire.” He was a great patron of idolatry, a zea- 
lot for it. All the forms and varieties of heathen- 
ism known among the Israelites he maintained and 
practised. Nor was he content with the paganism 
which he found already in the kingdom. He im- 
ported new shapes of idol worship. For when “ King 
Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tilgath-pileser, 


92 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damas- 
cus, King Ahaz sent to Urijah, the priest, the fashion 
of the altar and the pattern of it, according to all 
the workmanship thereof. And Urijah, the priest, 
built an altar according to all that King Ahaz had 
sent from Damascus: so Urijah the priest made 
it against King Ahaz came from Damascus; and 
when the king came from Damascus, the king saw 
the altar, and the king approached the altar, and of- 
fered thereon.’’ Thus “ he sacrificed unto the gods 
of Damascus which smote him.” “ They were the 
ruin of him,” says the historian, ‘‘and of all Israel.” 
Meanwhile the true God and his temple and wor- 
ship he treated with scorn. He “gathered together 
the vessels of the house of God, and cut in pieces 
the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the 
doors of the house of the Lord.” “And the covert 
for the Sabbath that they had built in the house, 
and the king’s entry without, turned he from the 
house of the Lord, for the king of Assyria,” to buy 
his assistance. And alas ! in this furious devotion 
to these lying vanities he was seconded by a com- 
plaisant and unprincipled high-priest in the person 
of Urijah. 

In this headlong career of sin, the hand of God 
arrested him, by bringing upon him a terrific inva- 
sion of his dominions. Pekah, the son of Remaliah, 
who then reigned over the northern kingdom of the 
ten tribes, entered into an alliance with Rezin, king 
of Syria, who ruled at Damascus, to overthrow the 
kingdom of Judah, dethrone Ahaz, and set up in his 


SOVEJ^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


193 


place a usurping sovereign, the son of Tabeal. The 
king had made himself the centre of the nation’s 
superstition, and in his mania for foreign religious 
practices was deeply immersed in the beastly and 
sanguinary observances with which the vile imagi- 
nations of men thought to honor them. The hand 
of God was lifted up to terrify and chastise him 
by the aggressive pride and cupidity of his neigh- 
bors. The timorous monarch, mean-spirited as well 
as base, quailed at the menace. “ It was told the 
house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with 
Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart 
of his people, as the trees of the woods are moved 
with the wind.” It was now that the Prophet Isaiah 
was sent to the terrified king, with an admonition 
not to be faint-hearted, for the “ two tails of their 
smoking firebrands,” as he contemptuously calls 
the fierce and menacing allies ; for it was God’s 
purpose to frighten but not to destroy King Ahaz ; 
and when the king in mock humility or super- 
stitious terror, declined the offer of a sensible sign 
of God’s promise of forbearance, he gave him that 
wonderful prediction of the Virgin -born, which, 
whatever proximate fulfillment it may have had in 
days close at hand, found its true and only adequate 
completion ages after in the Divine Son of Mary. 
The oracle was fulfilled, and Ahaz and Jerusalem 
were spared ; but not without a measure on the part 
of the king, which, while it wrought no real benefit 
to himself, brought in a power that a few genera- 
tions later reduced the kingdom to ruin. To pro- 
9 


194 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


tect him against the threatened assault, he purchased 
the aid of Tilgath-pileser, king of Syria, a power 
then rising into might upon the banks of the Eu- 
phrates. The Assyrian king took Damascus, the 
capital of Syria, and it was at an interview with him 
in that city that Ahaz, who seems indeed to have 
purchased his help by becoming his vassal, saw the 
altar which he copied to supersede God’s altar in the 
temple. But the deliverance came not till after he 
had been defeated by the troops of his neighbor 
Pekah, one of his sons slain, and a great number of 
his subjects carried into captivity by their northern 
brethren. And here the dreary story is relieved by 
an act of humanity, which ought not to be passed over 
in an account of Ahaz’s reign. The condition of 
the captured touched a chord of brotherly feeling in 
the hearts of the captors, and aroused by the ex- 
hortations of the Prophet Oded, they “ took the 
captives, and with the spoil clothed all that were 
naked among them, and arrayed them and shod 
them, and gave them to eat and to drink, and 
anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them 
upon asses, and brought them to Jericho, the city 
of the palm trees, to their brethren.” An exam- 
ple of magnanimity not often equalled in the an- 
nals of human warfare. His deliverance from this 
invasion was however but a respite. Affliction did 
not reform his cause. The Edomites and Philis- 
tines assaulted him. The former took from him the 
port of Eloth on the Red Sea, the seat of the great 
Solomon’s lucrative commerce. And his Assyrian 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


195 


ally, whose aid he again invoked, “distressed him, but 
strengthened him not.” No dealings of God indeed 
could cure him of his rooted love of idolatry and its 
attendant vices. “ In the time of his distress did he 
trespass yet more against the Lord: This is that 
king Ahaz.” “And the Lord brought Judah low be- 
cause of Ahaz king of Israel; for he made Judah 
naked.” But this wretched reign came to an early 
end, to the relief of his misgoverned realm. At the 
age of thirty-six Ahaz “ slept with his fathers, and 
they buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem, but 
they brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings 
of Israel.” The contempt and indignation of the 
nation marked themselves in that exclusion and in 
this scanting of the funeral honors of royalty. Only 
to a semi-royal sepulture his mortal part attained. 
And Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead. 

I have two remarks to make upon this reign, and 
in them I will endeavor to comprise the moral of 
the account. 

The first is, that there may be much religious 
activity, and no little concern and animation about 
religious matters, where there is no true religion. 
Viewed from one point, Ahaz was an intensely re- 
ligious man. Scarcely any one thing seems to have 
occupied so large a space in his evil life as the con- 
cerns of religion. He expended large sums upon it. 
He busied himself in the erection of its shrines and 
altars. He took much pains about it. He made 
personal sacrifices for it, even to the extent of offer- 
ing up his own children in sacrifice. Altars, images. 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


196 

and fanes were thickly scattered throughout his 
dominions by a people emulous of their ruler’s piety. 
He was tasteful and fastidious about his worship, 
and liked to have it elegant and splendid. The 
rude altar that Solomon had made in the temple, 
according to the prescription of Moses, of unhewn 
stone, did not suit his magnificent ideas, and so it 
was thrown aside, to be used for some superstitious 
purpose of divination, in order to make room for a 
grander altar of the Damascus pattern. Yet in all 
this multiplicity and profession of his religious do- 
ings, there was no religion in that high, spiritual 
sense which alone does justice to the word. The 
God in whom his breath was, and of whom were all 
his ways, he did not glorify, did not believe in, did 
not love, did not obey. His worship was misdi- 
rected to false, imaginary deities. Those that his 
fathers had brought in he cherished, and he import- 
ed more. And the worship he addressed to them 
was like themselves, sensuous, foul, inhuman — the 
sensual abominations of Baal, the dark, cruel rites of 
“ Moloch, horrid king.” Jehovah perhaps was not 
utterly disowned, but he was systematically depre- 
ciated and neglected. Religious instincts he had, 
but they ran in wrong channels; religious senti- 
ments he entertained, but they were tinged with the 
filthiness of lust, and the barbarism of cruelty, and 
all the baseness and frivolity of heathen supersti- 
tion. When the true God comes near to him, 
though it is with an offer of favor, he shrinks from 
him, either in a pretended humility or a supersti- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


197 

tious awe. And in either case the prophet pro- 
nounces it to be a wearying of God with his stub- 
bornness. He is like the demoniac that cries out, 
“ What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of 
God ? ” The people became like the ruler ; the de- 
basement was general. There must have been a 
continual growth of superstition and idolatrous wor- 
ship during the period before the reign of Ahaz. 
All the open and latent corruptions and unbelief of 
the people embodied themselves in this king. The 
low animal habits of the people declared on what 
objects they were setting their hearts ; every high 
hill and grove showed how their religion was work- 
ing with their natural tendencies, giving them a 
sanction, aggravating them, receiving back ever fresh 
corruption from them. The Prophet Hosea was a 
contemporary of this king, and describes his times : 

Altars,” says he, “ are as heaps in the furrows of 
the field,” as common and numerous. “Israel hath 
forgotten his maker, and buildeth temples.” Such 
a union of religiousness and irreligion is always pos- 
sible. So the people of Athens, St. Paul testifies, 
were very religious, and yet they were worldly, vain, 
licentious, full of empty disputations, and vile sen- 
sualities. 

My brethren, Ahaz and his times are a warning 
to us. They tell us very distinctly that there may 
be religious activity, thought, care, expenditure, 
sacrifice, directed to a false god, or to the true God 
falsified in the low and unworthy conceptions of 
men, abundant and showy religiousness, and no re- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


198 

ligion. Not gorgeous temples and a grand ceremo- 
nial, not multiplication of services and rites and 
observances are religion. But they may become a 
substitute for it, and the awe, or the glow, or the 
gratification they awaken be mistaken for true devo- 
tion. The help of worship may take the place of 
worship. Our hearts are weak ; let us take heed. 
“ God is a spirit, and they that worship him must 
worship him in spirit and in truth.’' ‘‘ Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” “ Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” That is 
religion. All this being busy about the externals of 
religion, without its inner power and graces, is put- 
ting the shell for the kernel. As expressions of it 
they are well. As compliances with God’s will they 
are duty. As channels of God’s grace they are help. 
But underneath them all there must be that deep 
sense of personal sin which leads the soul in lowly 
contrition and faith to the cross of Christ, before 
which it is changed into “a new creature,” in its af- 
fections, principles, aims, and motives. And without 
this no glitter, or costliness, or punctiliousness of ob- 
servance is aught better than a deception to the 
man, and an unregarded offering to his Maker. 

The second remark is, that an early accession 
to the possession of wealth and power is always a 
severe trial, and many times a fatal misfortune. 
Ahaz was a king at twenty, too old for a regency, 
too young to rule. Immature and unfashioned, he 
was set to rule others before he had learned to rule 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


199 


himself, under a scheme of government in which 
there was little restraint upon the sovereign, except 
the law of the Lord, which he neither knew nor 
cared for. What to him was the command that the 
king should make him a copy of the law, and keep 
it by him as the man of his counsels, in a day when 
there was a “ famine of . . . hearing the words of the 
Lord ” ? Meanwhile, the means of unlimited indul- 
gence were his, with none to check or restrain him 
in their use, at the very age when the appetites and 
impulses are pressing for indulgence with the fervor 
of their first, fresh force. Not strange is it that the 
young man under such circumstances should have 
had his religious instincts drawn toward the idola- 
try that sanctioned and even sanctified his pleasures, 
rather than to that severer form of belief which 
sought to bridle and restrict them. And then, when 
danger threatened, and voluptuous Baal could not 
help, how natural to turn to bloody Moloch, and 
propitiate him and buy his aid, even by casting his 
own offspring into the fire in the horrid valley of the 
son of Hinnom, and, when no shrine of gentler divini- 
ties could succor him,' resort to Tophet for aid. Alas 
for Ahaz ! the victim seemingly of the very facts and 
events in his condition which excited pride and com- 
placency in himself, and admiration and envy in be- 
holders. How true it is that the “ turning away of 
the simple shall slay thern, and the prosperity of fools 
shall destroy them.” How dangerous a thing it is 
to have wealth and power without restraint in early 
life, with the strong passions and heady conceits 


200 


SOVEJ^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


of that age suffered to work their way without hin- 
drance or rebuke. The subject of such a misfortune, 
miscalled advantage, will be apt either to forget 
God altogether, and live a life of atheistic self-indul- 
gence, or lay hold on that form of religion that offers 
least resistance to his inclinations, and opens the 
widest door “ to the lust of the flesh, and the lust of 
the eye, and the pride of life.” 

Measurably, my dear friends, the misfortune of 
Ahaz is every day repeating itself in the world, and 
perhaps not often more plainly and commonly than 
in our age and land. Restraint is not the fashion of 
the day, and early and large indulgence its rule. 
The home training, which is the best school for men, 
is not prosecuted with the patience and fidelity it 
justly demands. The result is a precocity of manli- 
ness and independence, and a free use of means, not 
friendly to virtue or any permanent usefulness. And 
alas ! the shipwreck that too often follows. 

Let me say a few words to parents and those who 
have care of the young. Let there be no haste on 
your part to rid yourselves of the guardianship, with 
which God has intrusted you, and its cares, or short- 
en the pupilage of those over whom you exercise 
it, and hasten the time when your charges shall be 
left to themselves. “ A child left to himself bring- 
eth his mother to shame ; ” and so far as his faults 
are justly attributable to a neglect or hasty removal 
of proper control, it becomes a deserved stigma on all 
who have thus forgone their duty. The condemna- 
tion of Eli was, that “ his sons made themselves vile. 


SOVEI^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


201 


and he restrained them not ; ” and so at last, a broken, 
wasted old man, he fell backward and brake his neck. 
Govern while government is needed. Govern mildly, 
but firmly. Govern patiently, and above all in God’s 
fear. 

And one word to the young. The independ- 
ence and indulgence you are longing for is your 
bane. Be content to wait till you are fit for them, 
and then they may be a blessing. “ Remember your 
Creator in the days of your youth.” Have right prin- 
ciples of religion fixed in your minds, and incorpo- 
rated into your life. Then you will know God and 
serve him, and not become the victims of idols, “ the 
world, the flesh, and the devil.” 

9 * 


XVII. 

HEZEKIAH. 

lie tnisted in the Lord God of Israel ; so that after him was none 
like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. 
— II. Kings xviii : 5. 

Hezekiah, of whom the.se words are said, was a re- 
former. The good son of a bad father, he illustrates 
the saying of Ezekiel, “ Now, lo, if he beget a son 
that seeth all his father’s sins which he hath done, 
and considereth, and doeth not such like, he shall 
not die for the iniquity of his father; he shall surely 
live.” None of the kings of Judah sank lower in 
wickedness than Ahaz ; none, our text tells us, be- 
fore or after him rose to so high a pitch of goodness 
as Hezekiah. An exception is not made even in 
favor of his pious and exemplary great-grandson 
Josiah. For worth and usefulness Hezekiah stands 
foremost among the kings of Judah. None were 
equal to him that preceded or followed him. This is 
large praise indeed. And as it is inspired praise, it 
must be just praise — “praise of God,” and who shall 
gainsay that? He was a reformer, and his work was 
one of great magnitude and difficulty. His father 
Ahaz had been an active patron and promoter of idol- 
atry in its grosser forms ; and with this and all the 
moral abominations that follow in its train, the king- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


203 


dom was fearfully demoralized. The erection of al- 
tars in all parts of the country had diffused the idol- 
atrous venom into all orders and ranks of men. The 
palace and the cottage alike did homage to Baal, and 
Ashtaroth, and Moloch ; and the rustic villager, as 
well as the elegant courtier, was poisoned and befoul- 
ed with the reeking pollution. From the prophets of 
Jerusalem had profaneness gone forth into all the 
land, so that the 'whole head was sick, and the 
whole heart faint.” To purify such a country was 
indeed to cleanse an Augean stable, and called for a 
man of faith, nerve, zeal, energy, and wisdom ; such 
a man was Hezekiah ; and in his successful perform- 
ance of the mighty work, he won for himself the 
high praise contained in our text. And if his work 
was not as radical and permanent as his pious ardor 
aimed to make it, it was only because “ man’s breath 
is in his nostrils ; and wherein is he to be accounted 
of? ” Before a good man’s work has had time to 
harden into sufficient strength to abide, he is forced 
to leave it, in obedience to the inexorable decree of 
mortality, to him that shall come after him ; and 
“ who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or 
a fool?” Hezekiah’s son and successor, Manasseh, 
was, in the sense of Scripture, eminently a fool. The 
only tincture of wisdom he ever had lay in the tardy 
repentance of his latter days, fruit that was gathered 
from the sweet uses of adversity. Hezekiah enjoyed 
throughout his reign the advantage of a wise coun- 
sellor in the great Prophet Isaiah, by whose advice 
and instruction he was to a great extent guided. 


204 


SOVEREIGNS OE JUDAH. 


He was one of the three eminent names, in after 
ages, held in chief estimation among the Jews. 
“ All,” says Ecclesiasticus, except David and Eze- 
kias and Josias were defective: for they forsook 
the law of the most High, even the kings of Juda 
failed.” Yet, he was not a perfect man ; success be- 
trayed him into pride, and pride led him into osten- 
tation. He was smitten, and miraculously delivered 
from the jaws of death. A sign akin to that vouch- 
safed to Joshua, in the going back of the shadow on 
the dial of Ahaz ten degrees, attested the divine pur- 
poses of mercy to him. To the ambassadors of the 
king of Babylon, who came to inquire after this 
wonder, he unwisely displayed his wealth, and pro- 
voked God’s anger. “ God left him to try him, that 
he might know all that was in his heart.” But “ he 
humbled himself for the pride of his heart,” and God 
was appeased. He lived in splendor and opulence, 
and when at last he died, “they buried him in the 
chiefest of the sepulchres of the sons of David ; and 
all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him 
honor at his death.” 

He was twenty-five years old when he began to 
reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusa- 
lem. His life was not long, for he died in the flower 
of his age ; and it was a troubled life, from the early 
beginning of his reign on to its close, much filled up 
with toils and conflicts. When he was thirty-nine 
years old, his strength was broken by a sickness that 
brought him to the verge of death ; and though fif- 
teen years were then added to his life by a special 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


205 


divine grant, doubtless it was life with weakened 
vigor and chastened feeling. The shadow of his 
predestined decease was continually hanging over 
him — as he himself says, “ I shall go softly all my 
years in the bitterness of my soul.” Yet he was on 
the whole a prosperous man. His efforts told ; his 
enterprises succeeded ; his arms were victorious ; he 
lived in wealth and honor. “ Hezekiah,” writes the 
historian, “had exceeding much riches and honor, 
and he made himself treasuries for silver, and for gold, 
and for precious stones, and for spices, and for shields, 
and for all manner of pleasant jewels ; storehouses 
also for the increase of corn, and wine, and oil ; and 
stalls for all manner of beasts, and cotes for flocks. 
Moreover he provided him cities and possession of 
flocks and herds in abundance, for God had given 
him substance very much.” “And many brought 
gifts unto the Lord to Jerusalem, and presents to 
Hezekiah, king of Judah ; so that he was magnified in 
the sight of all nations from thenceforth.” Truly he 
was a magnificent and illustrious monarch. 

But, what is far better, he had that true riches, 
without which a man, whatever be the abundance 
of his worldly possessions, is poor. He “ wrought 
'that which was good, and right, and truth before the 
Lord his God. And in every work that he began in 
the service of the house of God, and in the law, and 
in the commandments to seek his God, he did it 
with all his heart, and prospered.” “ He clave to the 
Lord, and departed not from following him, but 
kept his commandments which the Lord commanded 


2o6 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


Moses.” A true lover of God, a true keeper of His 
law, a zealous maintainer of His ordinances, a liberal 
supporter of His worship, looking amidst his power 
and splendor for a heavenly crown, and setting his 
heart upon heavenly treasures. Such was Hezekiah 
spiritually; and if, in the annals of the kings of Judah, 
by deeds and services he came to be accounted the 
great, yet by virtues and acts of religion none earned 
for himself more truly the higher title of the good. 

The life of this king naturally falls into three 
divisions : his reforming measures, his want and de- 
liverances, his sin and its correction. We may con- 
sider them successively without reference to chrono- 
logical order. 

On his accession to the throne he found the relig- 
ion of his kingdom in a state of dismal decay and 
ruin. The doors of the house of God were closed, 
and the services of the Mosaic law, if not wholly 
discontinued, were slighted and maimed. In his 
father’s reign, the high-priest even had lent himself 
to his mad schemes of innovation, and had made for 
him a fancy altar of the Damascus pattern to super- 
sede the ancient altar of God. Shrines and altars were 
thickly sprinkled through the country for the wor- 
ship of the heathen deities that usurped Jehovah’s 
place. The rites with which they were served were 
lascivious, obscene, and yet, with that strange alli- 
ance between lewdness and cruelty which is not 
unfrequently seen, they were to be propitiated by 
severe inflictions, and even human sacrifices. In this 
horrible misdirection of the religious instincts, Ahaz 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


207 


had himself taken part. No doubt there were men 
in Israel who had kept themselves clean from the 
abounding pollution, who “ sighed and cried ” over 
the evils of their times, and prayed, “ Lord, how 
long ? ” And we may well believe that it was in an- 
swer to their prayers that Hezekiah came. To re- 
dress these evils and restore the religion of his sub- 
jects to its pristine integrity was his aim. And in 
pursuing it his work was strictly one of restoration. 
He had no nostrums of his own, no inventions of 
new things to put in the place of that which it was 
his purpose to abolish. To put things back where 
the wretched apostasy of the nation found them, 
was his single work, and he had confidence in God 
that divine institutions and appointments brought 
duly into use would vindicate their own claims, and 
become instrumental in reviving perished faith and 
reclaiming the people to virtuous practice. To ac- 
complish this object, his means were well chosen and 
faithfully used. The temple worship ivas reinstated ; 
the passover was kept with a splendor not witnessed 
in many years ; the scattered remnants of the Ten 
Tribes, whose territory had been ravaged and depop- 
ulated by the Assyrians, were invited to participate 
in the solemnity ; the altars and images of false 
gods were removed and destroyed ; and even the 
brazen serpent which Moses made in the wilderness, 
for fear of its perversion to superstitious purposes 
was broken in pieces and called Nehushtan. In all 
this work the king took a personal part, guiding the 
actors in it by his example, and cheering them by 


208 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


his counsel and instruction. So Hezekiah’s refor- 
mation stands as a pattern of a true reformation. 
Its design and effect were restoration, not the inven- 
tion and establishment of new methods and forms. 
He did not believe in development and progress of 
religious institutions. When he would get things 
right, he would get them as they were when they 
came from the hand of God. There is in this par- 
ticular a striking analogy between this reform and 
the English Reformation of the sixteenth century. 
The design was not to make a Church, or to adorn 
a Church with novel devices of man’s wisdom ; but 
to cleanse the Church from defilement and corrup- 
tion, and make it what it was when it came from the 
hand of its Creator, and he pronounced it very good. 
And when religion has fallen into decay in any age, 
we are to profit by this hint, and not to seek its 
resuscitation by new measures, by novel devices cal- 
culated to promote excitement or act upon the ner- 
vous sensibilities of men, but by a more diligent, care- 
ful, and serious use of appointed means and instru- 
mentalities that have upon them the stamp of a 
divine authority, the reparation of God’s house, the 
orderly, solemn, seemly celebration of His ordinances, 
the regular and reverent observance of His worship, 
a due regard for His ministers and their sacred com- 
mission ; in fine, by putting into a condition to act 
with more freedom and efficiency those old insti- 
tutions which God has given, and promised to bless 
to the accomplishment of their sacred design. Much 
less are we to venture upon the formation of some 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


209 


new system and set up a Church of our own creating, 
to take the place of that old Church which is one, 
and which bears the signature of Christ upon its char- 
ter; or make a new ministry of our own in place of 
that ministry which he has promised to be with “ to 
the end of the world.” Christ’s institutions can never 
grow effete, obsolete, and outlawed ; but the folly of 
men can corrupt them or let them fall into desuetude 
and neglect. And then they need only to be revived, 
purified, and properly set forth, to recover their pris- 
tine power and efficacy, and then under their influ- 
ence dead hearts will revive, true servants of God 
take courage, and sinners be converted unto God. 
Hezekiah was a wise reformer, and his example tells 
us how to maintain religion in its proper vigor, and 
how to recover it to life and power when it is faint 
and declining. “ Ask for the old paths.” 

If we now pass to the consideration of the wars 
and escapes of this king, we shall at once see that 
the conspicuous thing in his reign, in its external re- 
lations, is the invasion of Sennacherib. The sacred 
writers describe this with a minuteness and a glpw 
not common in their usually brief, calm, and general 
historical notices. Very evident it is that it is intend- 
ed to be set forth as one of the Church’s most signal 
deliverances, and one of the most remarkable interpo- 
sitions of divine power in her behalf. Twice it is nar- 
rated in the sacred Book — in Second Kings, and Isaiah 
— in almost the same words, besides a briefer and more 
general statement in the Chronicles. It is the theme 
of much of the magnificent poetry of Isaiah, who 


210 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


has exhausted his utmost wealth of words and im- 
ages to set forth its majesty and greatness. It is the 
“ lighting down ” of Jehovah’s arm, “ his breath like 
an overflowing stream,” like the “ flame of a devour- 
ing fire.” The prophet’s words, in describing it, mar- 
shal themselves like a mighty and conquering host 
marching out to the battle, and move with the 
measured, stately step of “ an army with banners.” 
Sennacherib was a mighty monarch, and his inva- 
sion of the land filled it with terror and dismay. 
Isaiah, the noblest and most eloquent of the proph- 
ets, was the king’s counsellor and comforter in this 
and in every emergency. From him the king gained 
the serene confidence with which he viewed the 
threatening danger, and the people too grew calm 
under the example of their monarch. “ The people 
rested themslves on the words of Hezekiah, king of 
Judah.” Well might any nation repose on one to 
whom even now the world may turn as a signal ex- 
ample of what is meant by faith, as distinct from 
fanaticism. A threatening and insulting message 
comes from the boastful invader. Hezekiah goes up 
to the temple, and spreads it before the Lord, and 
receives through Isaiah an assurance of safety. The 
land is overrun, and a mighty host is encamped near 
Jerusalem. To human eyes escape is impossible. 
But the king and the prophet are calm, for their 
trust is in God, and their confidence is not mis- 
placed. “ It came to pass .that night that the angel 
of the Lord went forth and smote in the camp of 
the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thou- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


21 1 


sand.” The morning light saw the host annihilated, 
and the city intact and safe. “ One of the least re- 
ligious of English poets ” has been inspired by the 
solemn catastrophe to write of it religiously: 

“ The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold. 

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold. 

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 

That host with their banners at sunset was seen. 

Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath flown. 

That host on the morrow lay withered and strewn ; 

For the angel of death spi*ead his wings on the blast, 

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed. 

The tents were all silent, the banners alone ; 

The lances unlifted, the tinimpet unblown. 

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.” 

We have looked upon Hezekiah as an example of 
Avise zeal : here we have him before us as a pattern 
of enlightened faith. He tells us where to go “in all 
our troubles and adversities, whensoever they op- 
press us,” assures us of comfort and support, and ani- 
mates us to hope for relief and deliverance from 
God’s gracious hand beyond our expectations. No 
case is desperate with God. The Christian should 
never despair of God’s cause or his own when it is 
righteous. 

There is one other aspect of this king on which 
we must look, in order to draw from him the full 
measure of the instruction which he is capable of af- 
fording. This remaining view is less comely and at- 
tractive than the preceding ones, for it exhibits him 
to us as after all but a frail and imperfect man. And 


212 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


yet it has comfort for us, feeling, as we must, that we 
are such men ; assuring us that the men on whom 
the Scripture hesitates not to put the divine imprint 
of goodness are nevertheless such men as we are. 
The Scripture, with its customary impartiality, tells us 
of Hezekiah, amidst its praises of him, that he “ ren- 
dered not according to the benefit done unto him ; 
for his heart was lifted up.” It is a strong heart in- 
deed that can bear prosperity. Hezekiah in relig- 
ion is a reformer, in war firm and fearless ; but in 
prosperity he is vain, foolish, and self-confident. At 
some period of his life he fell sick. The connec- 
tion seems to indicate that it was when Sennache- 
rib’s invasion was impending. And Isaiah came to 
him with the awful message, “Set thine house in 
order, for thou shalt die, and not live. Then he 
turned his face to the wall and prayed.” For he 
deemed, and rightly, God’s decree conditional and 
not absolute. The prayer prevailed, and God pro- 
mised him by the mouth of that prophet an addi- 
tion to his days of fifteen years. And in token of 
the wise fulfilment of the promise, the “ shadow of 
the degrees on the sun-dial of Ahaz,” some creation 
of his father’s for measuring time by the sunlight, 
went ten degrees backward, “by which degrees it 
was gone down.” It was a miracle, but it was easy 
to God ; nor need we trouble ourselves to specu- 
late about its relation to the general course of nature. 

“ But can it be, one suppliant tear 
Should stay the ever-moving sphere ? 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


213 


A sick man’s lowly-breathed sigh, 

When from the world he turns away, 

And hides his weary eyes to pray, 

Should change your mystic dance, ye wanderers 
of the sky ? ” 

It is not ours to answer that question. The fame 
of the miracle spread into the neighboring lands, and 
messengers came from kings “ to inquire of the 
wonder that was done in the land.” Ambassadors 
came from even the great king of Babylon, to con- 
gratulate him on his recovery, and learn about the 
miracle. And then “ God left him, to try him ; and 
that he might know all that was in his heart.” It 
was too much for Hezekiah. The latent pride of 
his heart showed itself. He was betrayed into an 
ostentatious display of his wealth and greatness. 
Hezekiah was glad of them, and “ showed them all 
the house of his precious things, the silver, and the 
gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and 
all the house of his armor, and all that was found in 
his treasures ; there was nothing in his house nor in 
all his dominion that Hezekiah showed them not.” 
Dangerous, fatal ostentation. The sight awakened 
the cupidity that was never satisfied till, a few gen- 
erations later, Babylon made the country a prey. 
Venial fault we should call it, if indeed we accounted 
it a fault at all. But it awakened the displeasure of 
God, and expedited the destruction of a nation. 
The king’s great mentor, Isaiah, soon brought him 
word of God’s displeasure, and the consequences it 
would entail. And the good king’s heart, smitten 


214 


so VEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


with a sense of his folly, bows in penitence and sub- 
mission to the Lord’s just threatening. “ Good is 
the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. He 
said, moreover, for there shall be peace and truth 
in my days.” What a solemn lesson is here. How 
it tells us not to trust in our hearts, because they 
are “ deceitful above all things,” and therefore “ he 
that trusteth in his heart is a fool.” Our zeal for 
God in active labors, and our patient trust in him in 
seasons of danger cannot shield us against the pride 
that is wont to creep into our hearts, and swell them 
up with a sense of personal consequence, such as 
will cause us to behave ourselves unseemly, and 
vapor in airs that will draw down upon us the re- 
bukes of Heaven. Against this subtle mischief we 
cannot be too watchful, for it can eat out the heart 
of a very fair life, and make it in its seemliness an 
offence to God. “ He that exalteth himself shall be 
abased ; and he that humbleth himself shall be ex- 
alted.” 


XVIII. 

MANASSEH. 

And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and 
humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed 
unto him : and he was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, 
and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Ma- 
nasseh knew that the Lord he was God. — 11 . Chronicles xxxiii : 
12, 13. 

The death of Hezekiah, and the consequent in- 
terruption of his reformatory measures, were quickly 
followed by a relapse into the abominations which 
he had labored to suppress, and the nation greedily 
returned to the vile indulgences into which Ahaz 
had led them, with an appetite whetted by the tem- 
porary abstinence into which his pious son had con- 
strained them. Idols and idol worship had disap- 
peared, with the loathsome and revolting practices 
and spectacles that attend upon it ; but idolatry was 
not purged out of their souls. Still they set up their 
idols in their hearts, and when the pressure that had 
kept the inclination hidden was removed, they went 
back to their old ways with a violent recoil, “turned 
aside like a broken bow.” And in this sad back- 
sliding they were countenanced and sustained by 
this youthful sovereign, the son and successor of 


2i6 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


Hezekiah, a boy of only twelve years old, on whose 
immature and unfixed principles it seems probable the 
old courtiers of his grandfather Ahaz, kept in check 
by the strong hand of his godly father, sought, and 
too successfully, to impress the stamp of their own 
predilections and desires.* A pleasure-loving youth, 
anxious to secure the favor of the people, and the 
aid of the prominent and influential in the outset of 
his reign, beset with flattery, and lured by the baits 
of indulgence, he easily fell into the snare, and was 
easily led to believe that in re-establishing idolatry he 
was serving his own interests, and securing the har- 
mony and peace of his kingdom. To such lessons 
Manasseh was an apt scholar, and soon Judah was 
again what Ahaz had left it, with such novel touches 
of iniquity in addition as a corrupt mind could 
supply. The picture, as the sacred historians paint 
it, is sad to contemplate. “ He built up again the 
high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed ; 
and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove 
as did Ahab, king of Israel ; and worshipped all the 
host of heaven, and served them. And he built al- 
tars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord 
said. In Jerusalem will I put my name. And he 
built altars for all the host of heaven in the two 
courts of the house of the Lord. And he made his 
son pass through the fire, and observed times, and 
used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits 
and wizards; he wrought much wickedness in the 
sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.” Ma- 
nasseh “ seduced them to do more evil than did the 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


217 


nations whom the Lord destroyed before the chil- 
dren of Israel.” He did “ wickedly above all that the 
Amorites did which were before him.” The sin of 
the besotted nation culminated in his frantic mis- 
rule, and called down the awful doom, a few years 
after so signally fulfilled, “ Thus saith the Lord God 
of Israel, Behold! I am bringing such evil upon Jeru- 
salem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it both 
his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusa- 
lem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the 
house of Ahab ; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man 
wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down.” 

Yet at last, when calamity overtook the wretched 
king, and he was carried away in captivity, reflection 
followed. He thought on his ways, and repented 
with a repentance “ not to be repented of.” He was 
then a “brand plucked from the burning.” At last 
Manasseh knew that “the Lord he was God.” But 
did not Manasseh know this before ? Doubtless he 
did, at least to a certain extent and theoretically ; for 
although he was an idolater, the idolatry that pre- 
vailed in Israel, that worship of Baal and Ashtaroth 
and Moloch, did not involve the denial of the true 
God, though Jezebel and her wicked posterity had 
robbed Him of His due honor, by associating Him 
with inferior deities, and lowering His character to 
the standard of their own grovelling and unworthy 
conceptions. Manasseh was the son of the good 
Hezekiah, but it was his misfortune to be deprived 
of his godly parent at an early age, before pious in- 
structions and example had completed their good 
10 


2I8 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


work upon him, and his principles and purposes had 
strengthened into sufficient firmness to resist the cor- 
rupting influences of power and luxury. At the age 
of twelve years the youthful prince succeeded to 
his father’s throne, and very soon proved recreant to 
his father’s principles, forgot his father’s God, and 
became an open professor and patron of the worship 
of idols. How different might have been his career 
and character if he had grown up under the reforming 
and restraining hand of such a father as Hezekiah ! 
How irreparable to a child the loss of a good parent, 
especially if he be born to the inheritance of wealth 
and consequence ! We know not into whose hands he 
fell upon his father’s demise, but probably into the 
hands of such men as were wont to haunt the court 
and palace of a minor king — men bent only on 
their own selfish schemes of aggrandizement and gain ; 
men ready to ingratiate themselves with their youth- 
ful and confiding sovereign, by flattering his vanity 
and ministering to the gratification of his desires, 
that they may prey upon his bounty and use his 
name to justify and sustain their deeds of rapacity 
and oppression. It was the misfortune of Manasseh 
to pass the most critical period of his life, his transi- 
tion from youth to manhood, in an atmosphere so 
fraught with moral corruption, unfavorable to the 
formation of manly sentiments, holy purposes, and 
virtuous habits — a court, the court of a youth, himself 
the victim of a deadly miasma; the beams of his own 
glory exhaled under such influences, and the better 
impressions of earlier teachings were speedily erased ; 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


219 


and he emerges into notice a worldling and an idol- 
ater, a stain upon his country’s annals, for fifty years 
a scourge and a corrupter, himself at last saved, but 
only in the furnace of affliction,” and “ so as by 
fire.” Yet we cannot believe that he spent the first 
twelve years of his life in the family of so faithful 
and zealous a worshipper as Hezekiah without re- 
ceiving impressions which lingered with him through 
all his subsequent long course of unbelief and sin, 
and which, revived, not newly made, were the instru- 
ment of his recovery to the service of his father’s 
God in the closing stage of his life. It was a father’s 
teachings and a father’s example recurring to his 
memory in the solitude and desolation of his exile, 
and the memorial of a father’s prayers and services 
coming up before God as a powerful argument in his 
behalf, that wrought his conversion “ after so long 
a time,” and made the uses of adversity far sweeter 
and more beneficial to him than all the advantages of 
his abused and presumptuous prosperity. It is not 
ours to “ limit the Holy One,” who “ hath mercy on 
whom he will have mercy ; ” but we may reasonably 
believe that if Manasseh had not been the son of 
a Hezekiah, the subject of early instructions and 
prayers, “ beloved for the father’s sake,” his cap- 
tivity in Babylon might have operated only to em- 
bitter and harden his spirit, as affliction does in too 
many instances, and have driven him in his blindness 
and desperation farther from God and righteousness 
and salvation. There were other influences besides 
the natural operation of his reverses in Manasseh’s 


220 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


recovery, influences of truth and grace : of truth, long 
before implanted and smothered, but not extin- 
guished ; of grace, that came not fortuitously or ca- 
priciously or arbitrarily, but according to a law of 
God’s spiritual kingdom, the law whereby he shows 
“ mercy to thousands of them that love him, and keep 
his commandments ; ” the law by which the prayers 
and deeds of good men are kept in heaven as a pre- 
cious and enduring treasure ; the law whereby Heze- 
kiah wrought in the prevalency of his intercessions, 
after he had lain in his grave a half century, inter- 
cessions that were living seeds of a rich and happy 
harvest after long years of barrenness and apparent 
death ; a law which brought upon the sinful monarch 
that severe but merciful dispensation, which, by vir- 
tue of the sources of spiritual life which were min- 
gled with it, became the occasion of delivering his 
soul from death. And these considerations taken 
together render the case of Manasseh one of the 
most instructive and profitable on record in the 
Scriptures. It exhibits to us the history of one who 
was born heir to the throne; but also to the far richer 
possessions of a wise and pious father’s example, in- 
struction, and prayers. He reached the throne and 
lost the father just as he was about to enter upon 
that stage of life in which character takes its decided 
shape, and from which all that follows is apt to re- 
ceive its determinate hue and fashion. He became 
his own master and the master of a kingdom before 
he had attained any fitness for the difficult office of 
governing himself or others ; unprincipled and selfish 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


221 


men, sycophants and corrupters, stood around his 
throne, ready to pervert his principles and mislead 
his counsels for their own benefit or pleasure. 
Power and luxury tend to intoxicate youthful minds, 
powerfully operating to fill them with pride, wanton- 
ness, and presumption. To such men and such cir- 
cumstances a child, well taught and well trained, 
yet a child, fell an easy prey; and under their un- 
happy operation passed to manhood, in spite of such 
teaching and training, an evil man. He plunged 
headlong into a career of irreligion and wickedness, 
and persevered in it many years. The beginnings 
of good in him, if any had been made, were de- 
stroyed and lost. For a long time he prospered. 
He had forgotten God ; God appeared to have for- 
gotten him. The determination concerning him 
seemed to be, “ He is joined to his idols : let him 
alone.” But there were thoughts of peace toward 
him in the mind of God, purposes of good and not 
of evil. There were prayers registered in his favor. 
There were traces of early instruction, hidden un- 
derneath the rubbish accumulated in that corrupt 
and darkened mind. God sent upon him at last a 
reverse of fortune, seemingly in wrath, really in un- 
speakable compassion. He was dethroned and car- 
ried into captivity. ‘‘ By the rivers of Babylon we 
sat down and wept.” Splendor, plenty, power were 
gone. The greatness of his former condition served 
by contrast to aggravate the sense of his present 
wretchedness. But his tears were healing and re- 
storative. To him, as an immortal and accounta- 


222 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


ble being, Babylon was better than Jerusalem, his 
house of exile than his royal court. The departure 
of his pomp and honor made room for the entrance 
of salutary reflections. The season of sadness car- 
ries the soul back to childhood. Happily for him, 
childhood contained provisions and promises of a 
better life than his history had realized. He heard 
once more his father's voice. He beheld once more 
his father’s ways, and his father’s prayers were plead- 
ing for him on high, even as his father’s goodness 
was pleading with him below ; and so “when he was 
in affliction he besought the Lord his God, and hum- 
bled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, 
and prayed unto him ; and he was entreated of him, 
and heard his supplication, and brought him again 
to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh 
knew that the Lord he was God.” Nor was this 
repentance superficial and transitory. It brought 
forth in him “ the fruit of good living.” It yielded 
to him the “ peaceable fruit of righteousness.” He 
devoted the remnant of his days to God and duty, 
to reform and reparation, to the practice of piety 
and virtue, and to the promotion of religion among 
his people. For we are informed by the historian 
that “ he took away the strange gods and the idol 
out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that 
he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord 
and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. 
And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacri- 
ficed therein peace-offerings and thank-offerings, and 
commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.” 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


223 


He went to his grave in peace, and was gathered at 
last to the company of his fathers, and. of all the faith- 
ful departed in the paradise of God. Is not this “ a 
brand plucked from the burning”? How much en- 
couragement is there then to hope and pray and 
labor perseveringly for the conversion of sinful men, 
and especially of those whose early youth has been 
blessed with holy prayers and pious instructions. 
We are not to despair of any man. Few cases ever 
presented a more desperate and discouraging aspect 
than that of Manasseh. His wickedness began early 
and continued long. He grew into manhood a bold 
transgressor. He “ framed iniquity for a law.” His 
sin was high-handed, public, and shameless. He grew 
hoary-headed in sin. He had not only thrown aside 
the restraints of truth, but he had sanctified false- 
hood, and found a religion to sanction his sins and 
turn them into a semblance of piety. Still he was 
not beyond repentance, not incapable of repentance, 
for he did repent. There were avenues to his heart 
still open to the approaches of the Spirit. There were 
resources in divine providence sufficient to bring back 
his soul from the pit. May it not be so of any man 
who is going on still in his wickedness ? Ah ! let us 
never despair of the sinner. Let the sinner never 
despair of himself. God may not have given him 
up ; it may be that he yet waits to be gracious to 
him. It is not ours to utter decrees of reprobation 
on ourselves or on others. 

Again, let not any sinner be deterred from effort 
to deliver his feet out of “ the snare of the fowler,” 


224 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


by the thought that he has been long a sinner, and 
grievously a sinner. Listen not to the thought, 
that “ there is no hope.” It is the devil’s suggestion. 
True, the leopard cannot change his spots, nor the 
Ethiopian his skin ; but God can. He will if his 
power is duly invoked. He is long-suffering toward 
us, not willing that any should perish, but that all 
should come to repentance. If there are any of you 
here present who have lived long in transgression 
and stupidity, I call upon you to awake and bestir 
yourselves to-day ; yes, “to-day after so long a time, 
if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” 
And further, let us not think that the time is gone 
by when we may be of use to any with whom we 
have to do. Let us not give over prayer and effort 
for any irreligious friend or relative on whom time 
is setting the footprints of decay, and marking them 
for the grave. Who knows what purposes of mercy 
God may entertain toward them, and by us ? Is 
their case more desperate than Manasseh’s? And 
yet he was saved. Why may not they be saved ? If 
their case ever does become desperate, it may be 
that our neglect to pray and labor for them shall 
make it so. God reclaimed Manasseh by adversity. 
But he has other reclaiming agencies. Our word, 
our example might be such. While the wicked live, 
then, let us not cease to hope that they live to 
be subjects of mercy, nor fail to live and act be- 
fore and toward them as those whose blessed mis- 
sion it may be to become to them instruments of 
mercy. ^ 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


225 


Specially is all this true of those whose childhood 
was consecrated by the prayers and instructions of 
religious parents ; for there is a peculiar and very 
available ground of encouragement in regard to such. 
The child of a Hezekiah may be a Manasseh ; but, 
there is always good reason to hope, a Manasseh in 
his repentance, as well as a Manasseh in his sin. 
There is no truth more certain than that the earliest 
impressions are usually the deepest and most last- 
ing; and experience shows that such impressions 
may survive long oblivion, and revive with great live- 
liness and power after a protracted interval of inac- 
tion. I can never think that man is given up to 
hardness of heart who reverences the memory of a 
devout mother or an exemplary father. Besides, 
the faithfulness of God is concerned in every such 
case. The parents’ prayers have come up as a me- 
morial before God and are registered. More espe- 
cially does he stand pledged by the terms of his cove- 
nant when they stood before him at the font with 
their child, and he promised to grant all those 
things that they prayed for; “which promise, he, 
for his part, will most surely keep and perform.” 
That child he took into his family, received it 
for his “ own child by adoption,” “ incorporated it 
into his holy Church,” made it a member of Christ, 
“ a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of 
heaven; ” and while that child lives, there will always 
be great prevalency with God in that act of its pa- 
rents, and in their prayers in its behalf, persuading 
him powerfully to be long-suffering toward it, and not 


226 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


cut it ofif in its sins. I do not say that such a child 
cannot be lost ; but I do say that there is always 
peculiar reason to hope that such a child will be 
saved, and I must appeal to all such who may hear 
me this day on this ground. God grant it may not 
be without some beneficial effect. You remember 
the time when you dwelt within the atmosphere of a 
religious home. You had line upon line, and precept 
upon precept.” You were taught, so soon as you were 
able to learn, those things which a Christian ought to 
know and believe to his soul’s health.” The service 
of God was recommended to you with all the ear- 
nestness and tenderness of affection. Prayer went 
up for you, fervent and faithful. You were bap- 
tized and given to God, and accepted by him. The 
sign of the cross was imprinted upon you in token 
of your duty and privilege. And yet you are a 
Manasseh, not perhaps in the extent of his vileness, 
but like him following the course of this world, liv- 
ing in subjection to the spirit that worketh in the 
children of disobedience.” Oh ! are there no lin- 
gering recollections in you of those early scenes of 
the holy dead, of prayers, of good words, of wise 
counsels? If there are, the memorial yet speaks for 
you and in you. God hath not given you up to im- 
penitency and ruin. He calleth you to repentance. 
“ Hear, and your souls shall live.” 

Nor as it seems to me is this consideration less 
forceful and inspiriting to religious parents. We are 
impatient beings, and not ready to believe that we 
accomplish anything unless we see our tokens, and 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


227 


those very plain and unequivocal. The hearts of 
parents are too often discouraged because they are 
not favored with immediate and visible evidences. 
They have had their children baptized ; they have 
taught them ; they have prayed for them ; they have 
endeavored to exemplify the influence of the Gos- 
pel in their presence. Still, they are worldly and 
wayward. They evince little sensibility to religious 
considerations, little tenderness of conscience, little 
knowledge of the truth. They are growing up in 
irreligion, as they have grown up to the service of 
the world, if not to “ sit in the seat of the scornful.” 
Now all this is truly melancholy, and yet it is no 
argument for unbelief or despair or negligence. It 
does not warrant them in saying that their labor has 
been in vain, nor authorize them or others to with- 
hold their efforts in other instances. Though we 
believe not, “yet He remaineth faithful; he cannot 
deny himself.” It may be that God hath not forsaken 
your child; that “his seed remaineth in him” still; 
that your prayers are not forgotten, your labors not 
obliterated, the grace of holy baptism not withdrawn. 
Not every seed that is sown springs up and grows 
immediately. Not every seed that is buried in the 
soil, and mingled with it till it is no longer distin- 
guishable, is lost. There is life in the Egyptian bulb 
that has lain in the shrivelled hand of the dead 
for thousands of years ; and genial warmth and 
moisture will yet cause it to grow. “Be not weary 
in well doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye 
faint not.” “ Cast thy bread upon the waters, for 


228 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


thou shalt find it after many days.” God remem- 
bers your prayers, though he does not yet visibly an- 
swer them. Your good seed is imbedded in the soil, 
and will yet spring up and bear fruit. Hezekiah’s 
piety bore fruit after fifty years on the distant 
banks of the Euphrates. You too shall reap sooner 
or later, you cannot tell when or how ; it may be on 
a death-bed, in a felon’s cell, on the battle-field, or 
the sinking wreck. Yes, then a parent’s prayer and 
counsel may come into remembrance, and save a soul 
from death. For “he that goeth forth and weepeth, 
bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again 
with rejoicing, and bringing his sheaves with him.” 

Finally, let us all beware lest by our abuse of 
God’s mercies we draw upon our heads his chastise- 
ments, which yet are truly in such cases greater 
mercies than all that have gone before them. The 
goodness of God leadeth us to repentance. He 
draws us “with cords of a man, with bands of love.” 
Judgment is his strange work, for “he doth not 
willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.” Yet 
adversity is often profitable. It cools the burning 
thirst after earthly pleasure, and it opens the heart 
to the influence of things not seen. It is God’s last 
expedient for the recovery of man from sin. Alas ! 
how often we render its employment necessary, by 
refusing to be benefited by gentler means. How 
often do we compel God to say, “ I spake unto thee 
in thy prosperity, but thou saidst, I will not hear.” 
“ In the day of adversity consider.” I would that 
they who are living irreligiously in ease and pros- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


229 


perity would be sensible how fearfully they are 
endangering their blessings, what a necessity they 
are laying upon God in mercy and faithfulness to 
take them away ; we say to you therefore, that are 
living sinfully in the midst of comforts and bless- 
ings, what Daniel once said to Nebuchadnezzar, 
“ Break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine 
iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; if it may 
be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.” God blessed 
Manasseh many years, and he only grew harder and 
bolder in sin. He smote him, deprived him of his 
splendor and power, and sent him into exile to save 
his soul. It was true kindness, but it was a form of 
kindness which nothing recommended to God but the 
obstinate perverseness of His subject. Manasseh 
the exile, when he humbled himself and prayed and 
was forgiven, was a happier man, and a more suit- 
able object of congratulation and envy, than Ma- 
nasseh the powerful and prosperous, but idolatrous 
and sinful king. But he might have been forgiven 
without such a terrible reverse. Alas ! for human 
wilfulness and folly ! God’s mercies are rich, con- 
stant, innumerable upon you. They call you to his 
service with a voice of tenderness and gentle per- 
suasions. Turn and live ; lest he visit your “ in- 
iquity with stripes” and your “sin with scourges.” 


XIX. 


AMON. 

Amon was two and twenty years old when he began to reign, and 
reigned two years in Jerusalem : but he did that which was evil in 
the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh his father. — II. Chronicles 

XXXIII : 21,22. 

His reign was short and barren, and its end was 
tragical. No particular acts of his are recorded ; 
probably there were none to record. Two years 
comprised his period of power. He came to the 
throne at the age of twenty-two, and he was but 
twenty-four when he perished by a violent death. 
The two historians who tell us what little we know 
about him unite in saying that he was a bad man. 
He did evil in the sight of the Lord. He imitated 
the wickedness of his father Manasseh, but he did 
not imitate his repentance and reformation. He 
maintained the gross and manifold idolatry which 
Manasseh had established and patronized. He “ sac- 
rificed unto all the carved images that Manasseh his 
father had made and served.” He walked in all the 
way that his father walked in, and served the idols 
that his father served, and worshipped them. “And 
he forsook the Lord God of his fathers, and walked 
not in the way of the Lord.” In all that was wrong 
and sinful he was like his father before him ; but in 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


231 


the single particular that formed the redeeming fea- 
ture of his father’s life he was unlike him. “ He 
humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh 
his father humbled himself ; but Amon trespassed 
more and more.” His wickedness grew and increased 
to the very end of his brief career. And that evil 
career was cut short by violence, may we not say 
happily for the king and for the people ; for who can 
.say what such a course — a course that had attained 
such a ripeness in sin so early — might have come to 
if it had been prolonged? “ His servants conspired 
against him and slew him in his own house,” per- 
haps worn out with his tyranny and insolence, or it 
may be moved to contempt by his weakness, and 
desirous to rid the land of a sovereign that vexed 
and disgraced it, or seeking to avenge some personal 
wrong or accomplish some prospect of personal ad- 
vantage, gain, or ambition. ‘‘ He was buried in his 
sepulchre in the garden of Uzza,” and, as it might 
seem, not laid in the royal place of burial, a mark, 
not improbably, of the low estimation in which his 
subjects held him. And yet it appears that the mass 
of the people were not in sympathy with the con- 
spirators who took his life ; for it is stated by both 
the historians that the people of the land made 
Josiah, his son, king in his stead, thus nipping in 
the bud some projected usurpation, it seems prob- 
able, which the conspirators may have covered up 
under a show of zeal for the public weal. The sen- 
timent of loyalty to the house of David had not 
died out among them, weakened as it was likely to 


232 


SO VEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


be by the misconduct of evil kings, even of such 
monarchs as Manasseh and his corrupt young son. 
This is just about all we know of Amon. It is 
meagre knowledge indeed, but its very meagreness 
may in some sort make it specially profitable to us. 
For, as in other bad kings, evil has assumed a spe- 
cific shape, in some great act or in some leading trait 
of character, which has engrossed our attention, and 
been the principal subject of notice and comment in 
speaking of them, in this instance we have evil more 
in the abstract, evil as it is in the sight of the Lord, 
in its intrinsic vileness, as it stands in the view of 
him, who is “ of purer eyes than to behold evil,” and 
who penetrates the true essence of all sin as it is in 
itself, and weighs it in the balances of a perfect 
equity. 

Of Amon then it is said that “ he did that which 
was evil in the sight of the Lord,” with no specifi- 
cation of facts, save the general statement that he 
revived and perpetuated the idolatry which his great- 
grandfather Ahaz had established, and his father 
Manasseh had restored after its suppression by 
his grandfather, the pious Hezekiah. And for this 
course it may be said, in way of extenuation, that 
idolatry to him was hereditary and educational. 
His very name, Amon, supposed to have been given 
him in compliment to an Egyptian god, stamped it 
upon him. It was the form of religion in which he 
had been reared, and was all the religion that he 
knew or had opportunity of knowing. As he was 
but twenty-two when he came to the throne, it is 


SOVEJ^EIGNS OF JUDAH. 


233 


evident that his whole previous life must have been 
spent under the influence of that base, gross super- 
stition, which, saving in the few closing years of life, 
his father had delighted to promote and foster. And 
these years of reform at the close of Manasseh’s 
life were all too few to undo the mischiefs of his 
many years of transgression, or loosen the hold 
of a showy and sensual worship on a youth who 
had grown up under the influence of a creed that 
preached to him indulgence and luxury as a relig- 
ious service. 

There are three points here that may well engage 
our attention — evil as it is in itself, evil as it is in 
the sight of the Lord, evil as it assumes the shape 
of an idolatry. 

First then, as to evil, what it is. The word is 
very comprehensive, and includes everything that is 
bad, anything that is not what it should be, every- 
thing that is contrary to the true welfare of intelli- 
gent beings ; and in this comprehensive sense we 
use it when in the Lord’s Prayer we pray “Deliver 
us from evil.” There is, perhaps, no description of 
it better than that which the Catechism aflbrds, “ All 
dangers, both of soul and body ... all sin and wicked- 
ness . . . our spiritual enemy and everlasting death. 
It is with spiritual evil, however, that we now have to 
do — moral evil as distinct from physical evil, of which 
physical evil is but the dark shadow in this world. 
And moral evil is sin, for when it is said that Amon 
was evil, it is not meant that he was an unhappy 
man, but that he was a wicked man. Now “ sin,” 


234 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


according to St. Paul’s definition, “ is the transgres- 
sion of the law,” that is, of God’s law, or, by a 
stricter translation of his language, lawlessness, in- 
cluding all inward opposition or contrariety to God’s 
law, as well as all overt deeds of disobedience to its 
requirements. But if we will get nearer to the bot- 
tom of the subject, we must consider that God’s law 
is not arbitrary, that he makes nothing wrong which 
was not wrong in itself antecedently to all exertion 
of his will in regard to it, and nothing right that 
was not in its own nature always right ; that he com- 
mands nothing to be done that was not by some in- 
herent quality in it fit to be done ; that he forbids 
nothing to be done that was not in its inherent 
quality unfit to be done ; and thus that his law is 
but the expression of his mind in regard to things 
as in his infallible judgment they are good or bad — 
such not simply because they are commanded or for- 
bidden, but also because there is something in them- 
selves which forms the reason of their being com- 
manded or forbidden. The substance of this law as 
it is embodied by our Saviour himself is love to God 
and man. Hence, sin, which is the transgression of 
the law, an opposition to the law, is, in its essence, 
selfishness, the setting up of self-gratification, self- 
indulgence, self-interest in some form as the rule or 
end of life, running out into the myriad forms of 
wrong, wrong in the individual man, and wrong to 
others, which deform human life, and infest and de- 
base human society. Evil is the dominion of this vile 
principle in an intelligent soul. An evil man is the 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


235 


man in whom this principle reigns, whether it pours 
out its shame in flagrant excesses which the common 
voice of human society condemns, or moves in those 
decent shapes which cover up their baseness in 
harmless, comely, sometimes even laudable and use- 
ful exhibitions, and are not the object of general 
reprobation. And therefore it is that every man, 
whatever be the outward aspect of his life, needs to 
be born again, made a new creature, in order that 
this vile principle may be dethroned, and the true 
principle of love set up and established in its right- 
ful domination. For evil is born with man, and is 
in him from the first : man in his moral nature has 
to do with God, who knows him thoroughly, and 
not with purblind men, whom he may deceive, by a 
hypocrisy or a deception that includes himself, into 
a false estimate of his moral condition and value. 

And therefore it is that the sacred historian is 
careful to tell us concerning Amon, as inspiration 
is wont to do concerning evil men, that “ he did 
that which was evil in the sight of the Lordf which 
is our second point of remark. This alone deter- 
mines the reality of evil in him or in any man. He 
might be evil in the sight of men, and not be evil : 
and might not be evil in the sight of men, and be evil. 
That which God sees to be evil is evil, and equally 
true is it that that which God sees to be good is 
good. For he alone penetrates to that core of our 
nature where alone the true fountain and determin- 
ing source of our life abides, and whence all the 
dubious and contradictory issues of practice flow 


236 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


forth into notice to puzzle, and bewilder, and mis- 
lead men. But never can they in the least perplex 
or deceive him whose eye is ever fixed on that 
central principle that determines the quality of the 
character, however strange the disguises which the 
visible life may assume. Others they may embarrass 
or delude ; Him they never can. “ The Lord is a 
God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.” 
And therefore full oft the things that are highly es- 
teemed among men are “ abomination in the sight of 
God.” So Simon the sorcerer might have worn an 
ambiguous aspect to the Christian men with whom 
he had consorted. He had abandoned his magical 
arts ; he had preferred faith in Christ ; he had been 
baptized; he had joined the company of Christian 
disciples. He had committed but a single fault, he 
had asked the privilege of selling spiritual gifts for 
money. Perhaps many people nowadays who are 
not rejected from Christian fellowship exhibit faults 
quite as great, or even greater than this. But God 
saw that his heart was not right ; and St. Peter, by 
his inspiration, knew the divine opinion of him and 
declared it, “ Thy heart is not right in the sight 
of God.” And that judgment was infallible. There 
was no evading it, no appeal from it, no resort 
to any possibility of mistake to parry it. My 
brethren, it is a solemn thought, that we are just 
what God sees us to be, and that he sees us to be, 
every one of us, just what we are. The judgment of 
men upon us is very fallacious and uncertain. It is 
not by any means always a candid and impartial 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


237 


judgment; and if it is, it is exceedingly liable to 
error, liable to be perverted by the observation of 
much that it cannot understand, or that it misinter- 
prets. “ It is a small thing,” says St. Paul, “ that I be 
judged of you or of man’s judgment ; he that judg- 
eth me is the Lord.” To the soul conscious of right 
this is a great comfort ; but even a soul so conscious 
is not infallible. It may not have a perfectly right 
standard, or it may not apply its standard fairly. 
There is but one Judge that cannot err, that knows 
the right exactly, that knows the man perfectly, that 
applies the standard to the man without a shadow 
of weakness or bias or misapprehension. Ah ! that 
which is right in the sight of the Lord is right, that 
alone, certainly. Much will be called right that is 
not right by this rule ; much that is not called right 
may yet be right in the main underlying principle, 
spite of blemishes and faults in detail, and those 
not small, by its determination. The subject is 
large, and, as a subordinate part of this discussion, 
cannot now be pursued fully. The really good man 
is God’s good man, but the world’s good man is not 
always God’s good man. The world may have some 
standard of goodness which is quite different from 
God’s, and then its favorable verdict will be good 
for nothing in reference to the great final discrimina- 
tion which is to sever the wicked from among the 
just, and yet it may deceive and satisfy not only it- 
self, but the man who likes to hear smooth things 
about himself. And then, again, a thousand things 
may operate to put upon the outward life of a man 


238 SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 

close resemblances of real goodness, to make him in 
seeming what real goodness would make him, and yet 
the inward principle of goodness may be wanting in 
him. And, on the other side, a man who has that 
principle in him may, by untoward influences and cir- 
cumstances, be drawn into many faults and offences, 
and even grievous ones ; and an uncharitable world 
may regard his claims to goodness with ridicule, and 
call him a deceiver and a hypocrite, while a juster 
and more discerning eye may see in them naught 
but pitiable weaknesses and misfortunes. He may 
be the world’s evil man when he is not God’s evil 
man, just as another may be the world’s good man 
when he is not God’s good man. The thing for us is 
to be God’s good man. The misfortune of Amon’s 
case was that he did that which was evil in the sight 
of the Lord, Ambition, perhaps some sense of per- 
sonal injury, did lead some men to conspire against 
him, and assassinate him. But it is not certain that 
he was an evil man according to the sentiment of 
many, or even the prevailing sentiment of Judah. 
He was an idolater, but idolatry was in vogue. Men 
are not wont to condemn severely that which they 
practise themselves. In the vices of idolatry he was 
involved ; but idolatry sanctifies the vices that enter 
into its rites and observances, and to those who 
really believe in it, such vices are no longer wrong. 
Probably there were many in Judah who even ad- 
mired what was worst and vilest in Amon’s charac- 
ter as proof of religious zeal and devotion. But he 
was evil in the sight of the Lord, and that made all 


SOVEREIGNS OE JUDAH. 


239 


such false, misguided estimates of men of no ac- 
count to him. That determined what he was, settled 
his moral value. There was no loving God in his 
soul, no unselfish devotion to the principle of right ; 
no holiness, no intelligent, willing obedience to the 
law of God, no enthroning of that law in his heart 
as the supreme arbiter and judge of all his acts and 
ways; no conscientious desire and determination to 
do the will of God from his heart. Ah ! then, he 
was an evil man, whatsoever men might say of him, 
whatsoever judgment of man might acquit him, 
whatsoever leniency of sinners might extenuate his 
evil practice. My brethren, our great care, that 
can never be too anxiously and too continually pur- 
sued, should be to have our hearts right in the 
sight of God. Nothing is well with us as long as 
we are evil in the sight of the Lord ; virtues, world- 
ly moralities, conventionalities, conformity to some 
current standard of conduct, amiabilities, amenities 
that men praise and magnify, religious observances, 
punctilious and multiplied, are nothing as long as 
our Lord looks upon us and says, “ I know you 
that the love of God is not in you.” “ Create in me 
a clean heart, O God ! and renew a right spirit with- 
in me.” 

Finally, and this is our third point, the evil in 
Amon assumed the form of an idolatry. And into 
this shape one naturally runs. In him it existed in 
a very gross and offensive quality, in the direct ser- 
vice of fictitious deities, whose worship was loath- 
some and corrupting. The reforming effects of 


240 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


Manasseh’s repentant years but imperfectly reme- 
died the mischiefs of his earlier course, and he hand- 
ed on an idolatry in which his son had been reared 
and educated, to become again, under his favor and 
patronage, the religion of the court and of the king- 
dom. A late repentance, though it may avail to save 
the soul, will not undo the consequences of a protract- 
ed life of error and wickedness. But though in Amon’s 
case there was an open paganism to which he had 
fallen heir, there is a real paganism in all courses and 
forms of evil living. The heart will worship some- 
thing; and if it does not worship God, it will wor- 
ship that which, because it is not God, is a usurper 
of God’s place, and therefore is an idol. Our age is 
by no means free from this danger and this evil. 
There are many in this day who will not worship 
Christ, and who entertain but loose and vague ideas 
of the divine Being. They call themselves rational 
people, and boast their peculiar exception from the 
trammels of superstition and of traditional notions. 
But they are devout worshippers of humanity, and of 
no humanity so much as of their own, which they 
exalt into an oracle by which they presume to try 
God’s revelation, and all else that calls itself divine, 
undertaking to determine what God must be, and 
what he has revealed, by their new reason. And this 
worship of self, if it do not find seme intellectual 
idol to fasten upon, will run out into some supreme 
devotion to some worldly pursuit after the tangible 
forms of worldly good under which the soul carries 
on its secret inward homage to itself, while the God 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


241 


in whom its life is, and whose are all its ways, it 
does not glorify. St. Paul says that “ covetousness 
is idolatry ; ” and it is probable that the word he 
uses is good enough to include all other varieties of 
inordinate, excessive desire. And St.John thought 
it not unmeet to warn a Christian people to “keep 
themselves from idols.” Oh, brethren, it is awful to 
know that if we are doing that which is evil in the 
sight of the Lord — and we are certainly doing so if 
our hearts are not set upon God and his service — 
we are not without a god whom we are serving; we 
are so made that we must have a god. There is 
something to which we do devote ourselves with all 
our powers and faculties, something under which we 
make our idolatry of ourselves our slavish dedica- 
tion to some selfish end. Let it be money, and our 
devotion is covetousness ; the supreme aim at accu- 
mulation, either to shine in the eyes of men in the 
glitter of wealth by expenditure, or gloat upon 
the thought of it in a miserly keeping. Let it be 
greatness, and then is our worship ambition ; to be 
eminent in some form, raised above the many, to 
be the object of their admiration and their envy, and 
sit in a proud, cold conceit of our own superiority, 
to court by unworthy acts the offerings of flattery 
and applause. Let it be pleasure, and then its de- 
votion is sensuality; some satisfying of the flesh, and 
its appetites and passions, either in frivolous amuse- 
ments and gaieties, or in the beastly indulgences of 
drunkenness, or lust, or some besetting passion for 
present enjoyment. Oh, my brethren, are these 
II 


242 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


things our god, our religion ? How unworthy of in- 
telligent and immortal beings we must feel them to 
be. And yet there is no alternative if we will not 
have the Lord for our God, and consecrate ourselves 
sincerely and unreservedly to his service. Such ser- 
vice of the world is not always successful. Success 
is not its badge. Covetous men there are who are 
never rich, ambitious men who are never great, 
sensual men who have no large measure of joy. 
Still is their god this world, and though they be 
decent, respectable, and do not become blotches on 
the face of society by reason of some overt enormi- 
ties, but are well spoken of, as men will always be 
who do well unto themselves, yet are they evil men ; 
evil in the sight of the Lord, and therefore evil ac- 
cording to a judgment that never erred; and going 
into the unseen world with such an unredeemed 
and unsanctified nature, it has no joys for them, 
naught but that fearful greeting, ** Eat the fruit of 
thine own way, and be filled with thine own devices.” 
God help us to know ourselves, renew us unto his 
own image, and enable us to walk in newness of life. 


XX. 


JOSIAH. 

And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah 
lamented for Josiah ; and all the singing men and the singing women 
spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an 
ordinance in Israel : and behold, they are written in the lamentations. 
— II. Chronicles xxxv ; 24, 25. 

Of the sovereigns of Judah, Josiah was in many 
respects the most remarkable and illustrious ; cer- 
tainly the most valued in life, and the most lament- 
ed in death. We do not even except his great-grand- 
father Hezekiah, of whom it is said that none ex- 
celled him who went before him or followed after 
him, but who seems not to have so enshrined him- 
self in the nation’s heart. His case stands in very 
striking contrast to that of that ancestor of his of 
whom it is said by the inspired writer that he de- 
parted “ without being desired.” Our text tells us 
what grief his death occasioned ; how universal, 
deep, and lasting it was. It pervaded all classes in 
the nation. It awoke a universal wail among his 
people. A prophet made it his theme. The sons 
and daughters of music uttered the national sorrow 
in mournful numbers. Poets told it forth in elegiac 
verses. A permanent observance kept it alive. He 


244 


so VEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


was a great reformer, and in seeming he was a suc- 
cessful one ; but his reform was but a gleam of sun- 
shine in the close of a dark day, or the bright flush 
of the woods that betokens the setting in of winter. 
It was the deceitful hectic flush, and not the ruddy 
complexion of health ; yet his reform, though short- 
lived, was beautiful and deserving of honor. Pious 
Jews of later times looked back upon it as a revi- 
val of the faded glories of the national religion, 
and tenderly cherished the memory of the monarch 
who conceived and executed it. “ The remem- 
brance of Josiah,’’ says Ecclesiasticus, ■“ is like the 
composition of the perfume that is made by the 
art of the apothecary ; it is sweet as honey in all 
mouths, and as music at a banquet of wine.” He 
behaved himself uprightly in the conversion of his 
people, and took away the abominations of iniqui- 
ty, He directed his heart unto the Lord, and in 
the time of the ungodly he established the worship 
of God. 

Amon was but sixteen years old when his son 
Josiah was born; and when the father was mur- 
dered, at the early age of twenty-four, the suffrages 
of the people, in their loyalty to the line of David, 
placed Josiah on the throne at the age of eight, 
overriding and defeating the usurping aims of the 
conspirators who had slain Amon in favor of an- 
other. The sovereignty of such a boy must at first 
have been nominal ; but with the manly strength of 
his ripening and unfolding powers, that work began 
which has made his name so conspicuous and illus- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


245 


trious, and entitled him to the high praise bestowed 
upon him by the unerring words of inspiration, as 
one who did that which was right in the sight of 
the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his 
father, and turned not “aside to the right hand or 
to the left.” His was the glorious distinction of a 
life in all its main course without deflection from the 
path of rectitude, a steady stream of goodness and 
righteousness and truth, the well-developed and 
matured fruit of the Spirit. The early death of his 
father was doubtless a lesson to him ; sad to think 
that this can ever be the case ; perhaps his mother, 
Jedidah, was a woman of a better spirit. And it is 
at least probable that there were gathered about 
the boyhood of the king some or all of those who 
afterward were his coadjutors unto all good things: 
the pious Shaphan the scribe, the good high-priest 
Hilkiah,. Huldah the prophetess, Shallum the son 
ofTikvath, and most prominent and influential of 
all, the great prophet “ Jeremiah,” by whose in- 
struction and example his character may have been 
moulded to the excellence which it finally attained. 
Thus have there ever been, in the worst of times, 
those who have kept themselves pure and not 
bowed the knee to Baal, and so have preserved alive 
the spark of godliness till “times of refreshing” 
came. Early in Josiah’s life, in “ the eighth year of 
his reign, while he was yet young” — but sixteen 
years old — “ he began to seek after the God of 
David his father ; and in the twelfth year,” at twen- 
ty, “he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from 


246 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


the high places, and the groves, and the carved im- 
ages, and the molten images/’ Having before puri- 
fied his own life, he now entered zealously upon 
the work of a reformer of his kingdom. He prose- 
cuted the work from the first with energy and suc- 
cess ; but an incident which occurred six years later, 
when he had arrived at the age of twenty-six, gave 
a new impulse to his zeal, and roused him to higher 
conceptions of the necessity, and urgency, and so- 
lemnity of the work before him. Henceforth he en- 
gaged in it with greater intelligence, and with ex- 
acter ideas of its nature and details. The temple, 
during the long reign of his idolatrous grandfather, 
and the short but corrupt rule of his father, had fallen 
into neglect and disrepair. Deserted for showier 
and more popular worship, it had become shabby 
and dilapidated ; perhaps it had even been rifled and 
damaged to furnish adornment and material for the 
fanes of Manasseh’s fanatic paganism. To restore 
the temple to its pristine and rightful beauty was 
one of the good king’s worthy undertakings. And 
while this good and fitting work was going on, Hil- 
kiah, the high-priest, found in some obscure corner 
of the sacred edifice a book of the law of the Lord 
given by Moses,” which had lain neglected and for- 
gotten during the long preceding period of apostasy. 
The Pentateuch was perhaps the only Scripture then 
known and recognized as sacred. Existing only in 
manuscript, the copies of it were few, and it was 
not the common hand-book of men as the Bible is in 
our favored day. In idolatrous periods it was prob- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


247 


ably proscribed, and, as at the time of the Reforma- 
tion, such copies as were found were committed to 
the flames ; specially likely was this to be the case 
in the reign of Manasseh, when idolatry was so dar- 
ing and shameless. There was thus a famine of 
hearing the Word of the Lord, and Josiah without 
the Scriptures was forced to act somewhat blindly 
in his measures of reform. But “ to him that hath 
shall be given ; ’’ and so now opportunely the hid- 
den Word came to light, found where perhaps pious 
hands had secreted it for concealment and preserva- 
tion, in the days of insecurity, to guide and enlighten 
the king in his commendable work. So unto the 
godly ariseth light in the darkness.” Yet the dis- 
covery filled the king with consternation and dread. 
The book was a book of terror to him, and when 
Shaphan read it before the king, “ the king rent his 
clothes.” Its awful denunciations showed him the 
imminent danger into which his kingdom had 
brought itself by its departure from God’s service. 
The warning, however, did not benumb but stimu- 
late his endeavors. The task of purging the land 
from all the symbols and traces of the prevalent 
idolatry was persevered in and carried forward with 
resolution and thoroughness. His coadjutors in the 
work besides Jeremiah were Habakkuk and Zeph- 
aniah. Jehovah’s land was to tolerate no signs or 
reminders of the worship of the “gods many ” that 
had defiled and dishonored it. The idols were 
burned or ground to powder, and scattered to the 
winds. The shrines of all false deities were oblit- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


248 

crated so as to be no more reverenced or recognized. 
And even the sacred groves, which partial reforma- 
tions had hitherto spared, were cut down and burned 
with fire. The nation was solemnly reconciled to its 
God by a formal renewal of its covenant to be the 
Lord’s. The services of the temple were resumed and 
performed with a punctilious obedience to the ritual 
injunctions of the Law. And such a passover was 
kept as had not been seen in Israel since the days 
of Samuel the prophet. The contagion of reform 
spread itself into the territory of the old kingdom 
of Israel, portions of which along the border were 
now, it might seem, subject to Josiah’s authority. 
And at last the calf worship instituted by Jeroboam 
ceased, and the bones of its priests were dug up 
and scattered upon the altars ; those of “ the man 
of God which came from Judah,” who had been told 
the event in the days of Jehoram, and of that old 
prophet” that beguiled him, were alone excepted. 
The impetus of the royal earnestness carried the 
people along with it. The nation seemed to be re- 
generated, and henceforth during the remaining fif- 
teen years of Josiah’s reign stood before the eyes of 
mankind a God-fearing, a God-honoring, God-serv- 
ing people. 

But the faithful record will not let us suppose that 
Josiah was perfect. The infection that doth remain 
in them that are regenerated was in him, and his 
life, though the historian tells us that he died in 
peace, the peace of a clear conscience and a sure 
hope, terminated in disaster and bloodshed. War 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


249 

fell out between his potent neighbors of Assyria and 
Egypt, and Josiah was unwise and weak enough to 
meddle to his hurt, and take the part of Assyria in 
the war. Perhaps it was worldly policy, the hope of 
ingratiating himself with what he regarded as the 
stronger party. Perhaps it was the vainglory, be- 
gotten of his prosperity, that led him to make him- 
self the companion and equal of mighty kings. But 
whatever was the motive it was sin, and it led to 
fatal results ; it cost him his life when he was but 
thirty-nine years old. They “came to fight in the 
valley of Megiddo,” in that plain of Jezreel in Esdrae- 
lon, which had been the battle-field of so many 
wars. “And the archers shot at King Josiah, and 
the king said to his servants. Have me away, for I 
am sore wounded. His servants, therefore, brought 
him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one 
of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Judah and 
Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.” 

Yet the amendment he effected was but superficial. 
The heart of the nation was not rectified ; the old 
leaven was not purged out. The moment the pres- 
sure of power was withdrawn the people started 
aside “ like a broken bow,” and the kingdom was 
again the kingdom of the times of Manasseh and 
Amon, and not of Josiah s days. The people were 
conformists, not converts. There had been little 
spiritual improvement, little revival of true godliness, 
of the religion of the heart. Idolatry was still most 
congenial to the nation, and when it might it re- 
verted to its idols. It was the business of Josiah’s 
II* 


250 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


sons to undo what he had done, and under their 
weak misrule the ruin, to which the fatal mistake 
that cost him his life opened the door, rushed in like 
a flood, and soon became a universal deluge. The 
history clearly shows this. The reform of Josiah 
had little depth. It lay pretty much on the sur- 
face of things. Israel was spiritually a corpse, and 
though for a time it was a corpse painted into the 
semblance of life, it was a corpse still. 

Now this is very instructive and monitory to us. 
Men are not made religious by setting them to 
practise its forms ; nor is it by any means certain 
that the “ outward and visible ” will be followed by 
the “ inward and spiritual.” It may settle down into 
a lifelong falsehood and delusion. Mechanical re- 
ligion may be very exact and punctilious, and even 
burden itself with the abundance of its services and 
observances, and yet be without heart or vitality. 
Never, apparently, since its going forth had the law 
of Moses obtained a fuller expression and a more 
exact and complete observance than in the days of 
Josiah ; but to how small an extent the principles of 
religion had found their way into the hearts of the 
Jewish people, and become the animating and con- 
trolling force in their lives, the sequel shows. The 
appearance of goodness conjured up, as it were, by 
the wand of a magician, vanishes when his hand be- 
comes no longer able to hold it. So in our Saviour’s 
day a most careful and elaborate regard for the ex- 
ternals of religion prevailed, while its hollowness and 
its heartlessness called forth from him the sharpest 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


251 


and severest reproaches : “ This people draweth 
nigh unto me with their mouth and honoreth me 
with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” It 
may be so in all ages. And, therefore, the outward 
condition of religious observance, or any success or 
progress in promoting a more particular attention 
to ceremonies, rites, and visible appointments, ap- 
pliances, and occasions of worship, can never be a 
very precise and satisfactory gauge of religious pros- 
perity or religious advance. 

Apply this principle to ourselves. “ God is a 
spirit, and those who worship him must worship him 
in spirit and in truth.” In the heart is to be laid 
the foundation of a genuine religious character, in 
the inward fear and love of God’s holy name, in a 
filial reliance on his goodness and conformity to his 
will, in repentance toward God and faith toward 
our Lord Jesus Christ. But now suppose with a re- 
ligion more or less clear and correct, in order to 
obtain it or practise it, as the case may be, we set 
ourselves to the diligent observance of its outward 
appointments, and measure our attainments in it by 
the correctness, regularity, strictness, and facility 
with which this observance is carried on, we may be- 
come the dupes of a piece of most grievous self- 
deception. Notice, I say nothing against the ob- 
servance. It is right and proper, and in a great 
regard for it may well begin a religious life. But 
then if the conception of that life be erroneous or 
indefinite, and man be only aiming at a vague some- 
thing of which he has not a correct or precise idea. 


252 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


he may mistake his routine for piety, and rate his 
growth in religion by the amount of his mechanical 
performance of its forms. But religion is loving 
faith in the Redeemer, and the love and fear of God 
in the soul. Let not man think that the observance 
itself is religion, or the infallible means of producing 
it. Let him understand what religion is, and be 
ever aiming to cherish and strengthen it, and judge 
himself by the consciousness of its inward presence 
and working, or else his religiousness may grow into 
the dead crust of a lifelong Phariseeism, or be like 
the goodness of Josiah’s time, “as the morning 
cloud and early dew that goeth away.” 

And the same principle is of like importance in 
our treatment of others. To do good to the souls 
of men should be the aim of us all, and as opportu- 
nity is given us we should be active in that work. 
How important is it then to understand what that 
work is. If we simply persuade men or set them to 
attend to the external parts of religion, we may 
make formalists and not Christians. If we set be- 
fore them what a Christian character and life are, 
and then urge them to the punctual and faithful use 
of the ordinances and observances of religion as a 
means which God may bless to the development 
and increase of vital religion in them, and admonish 
them at the same time that the effect will not follow 
infallibly, but only as they steadily contemplate the 
inward essence of religion, and steadily strive for it 
in the use of those means, we may be the happy and 
honored instrument of saving souls from death, and 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


253 


turning them to righteousness. But if we are con- 
tent with inducing them to practise the outward 
forms of religion, and leave them to infer that this is 
religion itself, and that it is strong and lively just 
in proportion to the multiplicity and punctiliousness 
of the practice, we may look complacently upon the 
result of our labors when God may see in it nothing 
to approve, and may pass off upon a neighbor whom 
we would fain benefit for the blessed reality of God’s 
service but a pitiful and empty imitation. Well 
does the apostle pray that our “ love may abound 
more and more in knowledge and in judgment,” 
that so we may know how to “ speak a word in sea- 
son to him that is weary,” and be wise reprovers and 
teachers of our fellow men in the things of God, 
never mistaking ourselves nor leading them to mis- 
take the means for the end, and thus becoming blind 
leaders of the blind. 

There has arisen in our day an extensive desire to 
bring back into the Church the piety of ancient 
times, and it is proposed by many to do this by 
bringing back ancient forms and usages — or what are 
presumed to be such — and by multiplying their use, 
and making them splendid. I say presumed, be- 
cause I am well persuaded that much of what is call- 
ed ancient is not ancient enough to be any author- 
ity for practice ; that many of the presumptions rest 
on insufficient grounds that will not bear examina- 
tion ; and that, when traced to their real dates and 
sources, they lose all title to respect. The effect 
has been to introduce in some quarters a scenic 


254 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


worship of elaborate form and gorgeous display- 
in multiplied ceremonies, vestments, and services, 
spreading over the Church’s sober worship an array 
of costly glitter and sanctimonious parade. Far be 
it from me to speak with indiscriminate censure of 
that which in many instances has originated in a sin- 
cere devotion and an honest purpose of usefulness, 
in convictions which even when in error are too ear- 
nest and respectable to be treated with harshness or 
derision ; which has been practised and pronounced 
right by men of great purity and spirituality, and 
has allied itself with works of charity, with mercy 
and good fruits, which deserve imitation rather than 
criticism. Yet it is impossible to repress the opinion 
that under this movement, bodily exercise, that pro- 
fiteth little, will be substituted for the actings of 
faith, and “ the sighing of a contrite heart ; ” and 
that postures, motions, and gestures of the body will 
take the place of pious sentiments and emotions 
of the soul ; while a glorious and elaborate ritual 
will attract the attention and wonder of many in 
whom the great truths they are intended to repre- 
sent and symbolize will exert little power. And 
with this fear and clear perception of the prejudice 
and alarm such exhibitions create in many minds, it 
can scarcely be doubted that this style of religion 
had better be forborne, as, like Josiah’s reformation, 
to a great extent superficial and unspiritual, and 
not likely to lead to lasting good results. 

Finally, let us all remember that, whatever our 
labors and services for God and man may be, we are 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


255 


still frail men, subject to the weaknesses and failings 
that are incident to humanity, and that our very 
success in good designs may make us “ heady and 
high-minded,’' and lead us into needless entangle- 
ments in worldly strifes and policies which may cut 
short our usefulness, and tarnish our reputation. 
Let the fate of the excellent Josiah be a warning to 
us. Let us continually pray, “ Take not thy holy 
spirit from us ; ” and, forgetting those things which 
are behind, reach forth to those things which are 
before, and press toward the mark for the prize of 
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 


XXI. 

JEHOAHAZ. 

Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and 
made him king in his father’s stead in Jerusalem. — II. Chronicles 
XXXVI : I. 

When Josiah fell on the bloody field of Jezreel, 
the independence of his kingdom virtually fell ; with 
his unwise meddling in the strife of his powerful 
neighbors, he rendered his kingdom henceforward 
their prey. Judah was ever after, in the forcible im- 
age of Isaiah, a ball violently turned and tossed be- 
tween the rival combatants for supremacy. 

Josiah was succeeded by his son Jehoahaz, who 
was, however, elevated to the throne by the popular 
voice, as our text tells us, and not by the strict law 
of hereditary succession. His brother Eliakim, who 
was two years older than himself, and therefore the 
lawful heir to the throne, was thrust aside to make 
room for him. The reasons of this irregularity do 
not appear ; but the fact stated by the writer of the 
Chronicles in our text is corroborated by the con- 
current testimony of the author of the Second Book 
of Kings. We can account for it only by conjecture. 
The disastrous issue of the battle of Megiddo, in 
which the excellent King Josiah was slain, had left 
the land without a ruler, while the Egyptian army. 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


257 


flushed with victory, must needs pass through it on 
its homeward route, and would be likely to wreak 
upon it the vengeance which Josiah had so unwisely 
provoked by taking part with Assyria. All was con- 
fusion, panic, and dismay. Josiah had fallen a vic- 
tim to his own worldly policy. Seldom do the peo- 
ple of God give way to the wisdom of this world 
without incurring punishment. Josiah had med- 
dled to his hurt, and in disregard of the advice and 
warning of Pharoah — whom his hasty and ill-direct- 
ed prudence in taking part with Assyria, as appar- 
ently the party least dangerous to himself, had 
forced into the unwilling attitude of an enemy — it 
was to his ruin. He “hearkened not unto the words 
of Necho,’' the Egyptian king, “from the mouth 
of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megid- 
do.” Of his two powerful and dangerous neighbors, 
Egypt and Assyria, Egypt was the nearer ; and 
in the war that had broken out between them, he 
thought it good policy to conciliate Assyria, as the 
party from which he had the least to apprehend for 
himself, by taking its part against Egypt, whose 
proximity made it formidable to him. His “ strength 
was to sit still ; ” his wisdom, to maintain the po- 
sition of a neutral. Egypt had no hostile inten- 
tions toward him. So Necho labored to assure 
him. An earthly prudence taught him otherwise, 
and the awful penalty came in his untimely death on 
the bloody field of Megiddo. And now as trium- 
phant Egypt came sweeping across the country on 
its return, the bereaved people might well apprehend 


258 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


its readiness to avenge this ill-judged and careless 
interference. It was under such circumstances that 
^‘the people of the land took Jehoahaz,” the second 
son of Josiah, “and made him king in his father’s 
stead in Jerusalem,” in preference to his elder brother 
Eliakim, and in violation of his hereditary rights. It 
was the expedient of a moment of terror. It was 
not a time for punctilio. A leader they must have. 
Perhaps Jehoahaz was the more popular man of the 
two, the favorite of the nation. Perhaps he was the 
abler; certainly Eliakim, when he afterward came 
to the throne, evinced no such ability as might com- 
mend him to public confidence as the man for a dif- 
ficult and momentous crisis. Perhaps Jehoahaz was 
at hand, while Eliakim was away. It might be that 
Eliakim was absent with his father in the disastrous 
war, and perhaps, in their imperfect knowledge of the 
facts, reported or surmised to be a prisoner or a 
sharer in his father’s doom. For some one of these 
reasons, or for some other not discoverable, the peo- 
ple of the land “took Jehoahaz, the second son of 
Josiah,” in preference to Eliakim, his elder brother, 
the rightful claimant, and made him king, in King 
Josiah’s stead. Perhaps Eliakim, in a spirit of self- 
abnegation, voluntarily stood aside in the belief of his 
brother’s greater fitness for the exigency. But how- 
ever Jehoahaz came thus to supersede his brother, 
his taste of the sweets of power, his trial of his quali- 
fications to rule God’s people, was short. “He reigned 
three months in Jerusalem.” A youth of twenty- 
three when he took possession of his father’s vacant 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


259 


throne ; at the end of three months he was a dis- 
crowned captive, doomed to end his days in exile on 
the shores of the Nile. The popular voice in his 
favor could not make him adequate to exigency. 
His exaltation to power could not stay the progress 
of the avenging torrent. Nechocame in indignation 
on his way back to Egypt and deposed the royal 
puppet. The choice of the people was now re- 
versed. Jehoahaz was set aside, and the regular heir 
Eliakim set up under the name of Jehoiakim. The 
unwise meddling of Josiah had reduced his kingdom 
to a state of vassalage and dependence upon a foreign 
power, from which it never recovered. Henceforth 
in Judah the monarch was but a stipendiary and a 
subordinate. True, power might alternate between 
the Nile and Euphrates; but it had finally forsaken 
the Jordan, and the fallen line of David must fast 
decline into insignificance and obscurity. Of its 
royal diadem the prophecy of Ezekiel was to be ful- 
filled. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it 
shall be no more, until he come, whose right it is, and 
I will give it him ; ” even that “Lion of the tribe of 
J udah,” who is “ head over all things to the Church,” 
and ^‘of whose kingdom there shall be no end.” 

The original name of Jehoahaz was Shallum, and 
by this name he is called in the prophecies of his con- 
temporary, Jeremiah. Jehoahaz, the Lord’s posses- 
sion, as it signifies, is the name, it seems probable, 
which he assumed on his accession to the throne, and 
which was put upon him as a mark of vassalage by 
Pharaoh Necho. His character is briefly summed 


26 o 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


up in the customary phrase, “He did that which 
was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all 
that which his fathers had done.” The details of 
his evil-doing are not given us, and indeed his trans- 
itory reign afforded small space for the development 
of his wickedness in the office of a ruler. This only 
we find charged against him, that he was rapacious 
and oppressive, when the prophet Ezekiel says of 
him, representing him under the figure of a young 
lion, “ It learned to catch the prey, it devoured 
men.” Yet still the hapless young usurper — such 
more by the people’s will than his own it might 
seem — perhaps for the reason, if for no better, that 
he had been their choice, was lamented by the na- 
tion in his destiny worse than death as a captive in 
Egypt. “ Take up a lamentation,” cries the pro- 
phet Ezekiel in their behalf, “ for the lion’s whelp 
that was taken in the pit, and brought with chains 
into the land of Egypt.” Yet, perhaps this was 
more pity than the tribute of any strong affection. 
And yet irreligion may be found in alliance with 
many attractive qualities, and such may have been 
the case of this unhappy young prince. Such qual- 
ities may have brought him to the throne irregularly. 
Hence he was cast down into a lifelong dejection 
and disgrace. 

We cannot close our sketch of this unhappy prince 
better than in Jeremiah’s words, with which, in the 
form of an address to him in the name of the Lord, 
the prophet bewails his mournful fate : “ Weep ye 
not for the dead, neither bemoan him ; but weep 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


261 


sore for him that goeth away, for he shall return no 
more, nor see his native country. For thus saith 
the Lord touching Shallum, the son of Josiah, king 
of Judah, which reigned in the stead of Josiah his 
father, which went forth out of this place : He shall 
not return thither any more ; but he shall die in the 
place whither they have led him captive, and shall 
see this land no more.” A king for three short 
months, a captive and an exile for many long years, 
a usurper of power that did not lawfully belong to 
him, a supplanter of a brother in his eagerness for 
distinction and control, a rapacious oppressor while 
his power lasted, a rebel against God and servant of 
vile, senseless idols, a usurper of power and abuser 
of it, wearing out his life in hopeless slavery and de- 
grading dependence upon the will of another in an 
alien and hostile land, kept merely as a trophy of 
victory and a spectacle of fallen greatness ; such is 
Jehoahaz, a melancholy and monitory picture truly. 

But on these merely historical features of this in- 
stance of short-lived glory I must not dwell. The 
record of it is the Word of God, and that is always 
profitable. Line upon line and precept upon pre- 
cept ” that Word presents to us warning and instruc- 
tion in the lives of men, multiplies them, and ex- 
hibits to us different shades, sides, and aspects of 
sinful living, that it may frighten us from sinning by 
the various forms and consequences of sin and folly 
that with many voices say to us, “ Oh, do not this 
abominable thing that I hate,” or allure and per- 
suade us by many pleasant shapes of virtue and 


262 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


godliness which say to us, ‘‘ Her ways are ways of 
pleasantness, and happy is every one that retaineth 
her.” 

This king’s life teaches us that distinction may be 
purchased at too dear a rate, and is so when it is ob- 
tained at the expense of violated obligations and by 
illegal means that disregard the restraints of duty 
and honor. Jehoahaz was a usurper. His father’s 
throne was vacant, but this gave him no right to 
occupy it. It was not his, but another’s, and that 
other was his brother. A popular impulse carried 
him to the throne in spite of this obstacle, and con- 
trary to the established laws and polity of the king- 
dom. How far he originated the impulse or pro- 
moted it does not appear. But plainly he acceded 
to it, and rode upon it into power in gross contempt 
of his brother’s lawful claims. Perhaps he had been 
a demagogue like Absalom, and had been scheming 
for the result, under a show of zeal for the people’s 
welfare. At any rate he welcomed it, and in a mo- 
ment of consternation and disorder unscrupulously 
raised himself into power. Crowns are dazzling 
things, and many to attain them have trampled 
under foot very sacred obligations, and done flagi- 
tious deeds. Nothing is charged upon Jehoahaz 
but thrusting himself, or suffering himself to be 
thrust, into a throne that was not his, to the injury 
of its rightful occupant. He was a thief that had 
stolen royalty and shone before the eyes of men in 
splendors that did not belong to him. 

And now what was the result of this surreptitious 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


263 


assumption of power to him, and in this life? Alas, 
poor king ! What a transient pageantry was his 
royal pomp ! He reigned only long enough to get 
his name on to the catalogue of evil kings, and be 
marked in the infallible Word as a bad man. And 
all this was the legitimate consequence of his usur- 
pation, of his unauthorized assumption of kingly 
power. If he had been content to live in private 
life, and do his duty as a good subject of the right- 
ful ruler in that state of life in which it had pleas- 
ed God to call him, he might have spent his days 
in peace and quietness so far as the disturbed 
state of public affairs would have permitted. It 
was his ambition that thrust him into the sphere 
of danger. His brother Jehoiakim, the rightful 
king, when he came to the throne, experienced no 
harm or molestation. Indeed, as it might seem, 
it was this very usurpation of his, viewed by the 
victorious Pharaoh as an audacious assertion of 
independence in the face of the conqueror, that 
provoked him to pull down the intrusive image 
from its pedestal, and consign it to disgrace and 
infamy. Thus his ambition and presumption, his 
too eager grasping at advantages by means of ques- 
tionable lawfulness, his violation of relative claims 
in his selfish eagerness for greatness, became the 
cause of his miserable downfall, and made his life 
a wretched story. 

And, my brethren, this is a lesson to us that ought 
to be laid to heart. Such is apt to be the sequel of 
ill-gotten advantages, whether of gain or place, of 


264 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


a disregard of conscience in a hasty, impatient grasp- 
ing at good that may come within our reach. The 
seeds of decay and suffering are sown in it, though 
it may thrive for a season. Seekest thou great 
things for thyself, seek them not,” is the wise advice 
of the prophet, above all when thou canst not come 
by them innocently, for, as another prophet tells us. 
He that getteth riches and not by right, shall 
leave them in the midst of his days, and at his latter 
end shall be a fool.” The result shall demonstrate 
his folly. Alas ! such cases, how they multiply in 
the land. Haste to get rich, haste to get great, too 
eager to wait for honest processes; and, in grasping 
eagerly at its end, trampling under foot the small 
impediments of the rights of this man and the other 
that lie across its path; rising to eminence with 
mushroom quickness, and dying with mushroom ra- 
pidity, like Jonah’s gourd that came up in a night 
and perished in a night, is almost a distinctive pecu- 
liarity of our times. The quiet old way of being 
content with our place and making the best of it, or, 
if we aspire to a betterment of our condition, seeking 
it by honest labor and waiting till God in his provi- 
dence opens to us a door and says to us, “ Go up 
higher,” is not much in vogue. Men, young men, 
must be rich soon, or seem so, must seek a show, and 
indulge in costly pleasures and fashionable vices. 
And then come peculations, defaults, and frauds, and 
forgeries and robberies, a short reign of glory, and 
soon the felon’s cell, the penitentiary, the long, dis- 
graceful, wearing imprisonment, a tainted reputation 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


265 


to carry through life, a memory loaded with incura- 
ble misdeeds, and a solemn, remorseful looking to 
the judgment of God when life is ended. And if the 
result be less marked in struggles after power, it is 
only a little less apparent, not at all less real. Men 
are not content to rise by merit. That is altogether 
too slow a process, and, in the view of worldly minds, 
of too uncertain issue to content the eager aspira- 
tions of those whose vanity hankers after position 
for which no experience has fitted them. Intrigue, 
bribery, and false witness, unscrupulous use of money, 
false professions, promises which there is neither the 
ability nor the purpose to fulfil, misrepresentations of 
the views and acts of others, wholesale defamation 
and detraction, are brought into play to attain places 
of power, influence, and honor, of which however 
the honor is greatly abated by the dishonorableness 
of those on whom they are unworthily bestowed. 
For when unfit men get into distinguished places, 
the places sink to the level of the men much faster 
than the men rise to the height of the places. 
And is there not a Nemesis for these things in this 
world of ours, which, if Herod in his royal robes 
makes an oration unto the besotted people, and the 
cry comes up, “ It is the voice of a god and not of 
a man,” can smite him, so that he shall be “eaten 
with worms and give up the ghost ” ? Is there not 
some Pharaoh found who can bring him down from 
his pride of place to the manners that better befit 
him in some Egyptian captivity? 

And short-lived is the enjoyment of all such good. 

12 


266 


SOVEREIGN'S OF JUEAH. 


He reigned three months in Jerusalem ; a usurped 
royalty he had, and he had it three months. What 
a prize was that to reward a man for violating the 
constitution of his country, despising the claims of 
brotherhood, and flaunting 'in robes of splendor 
which he and all men knew were his by no right 
human or divine? Poor king! poor king! Better 
have been the humblest peasant in his kingdom. 
Our tenure of such good as comes to us by unlaw- 
ful means may be as short or even shorter ; for all 
such good, as Shallum’s did, carries in it itself the 
causes of its own decay and dissolution. There is an 
outer verge of life or divinity somewhere, in which 
“whatsoever a man soweth he shall also reap.” But 
if it be continued to the end of life, what is it ? “ Be- 
hold thou hast made my days a span long.” Pro- 
longed it may be, but to what end ? What are the 
dreary days of a disappointed avarice or a futile am- 
bition, as it finds it has but the shadow of that it 
sought, and not its substance; haunted with spectres 
of past evil doing, and holding fast to that which 
has lost its power to please; looking forward to the 
awful darkness of the tomb, without the discovery 
of anything to cheer it ; and dimly descrying through 
the gloom the judgment-seat of God, which, what- 
ever be the creed, will show its shadowy form amidst 
the dimness, and tell of a day when God “ will ren- 
der to every man according to his works ”? Such a 
lengthening out of the prosperity of wickedness may 
be far worse than the overtaking of adversity : what 
is it but ^ turning of life into a spiritual decay, not 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


267 

wholly joyless or hopeless ; but like to the unbroken 
tranquillity of a stagnant lake, that, beneath its glassy 
surface, hides nothing but barrenness and putridity. 
Adversity like King Manasseh’s might do him good ; 
while, the curse of God upon him, it might be that 
he should prosper to the end. 

My brethren, “ fear God and keep his command- 
ments.” Do your duty in that state assigned you. 
“ Be content with such things as ye have.” Seek ad- 
vantage only by honest means, and under the lead- 
ings of Providence. In worldly goods so obtained 
there is stability and sweetness. Such power as so 
comes to you ends in no captivity in Egypt : the 
power of a good name, the consciousness of influen- 
cing men by their confidence in you, their respect for 
you ; the slow but sure growth of that influence for 
good that surmounts calumny and opposition, this 
shall stand amid the blasts like some sturdy oak 
whose roots are deep in the ground. Seek that in 
well doing, and it shall be well with you in time and 
forever. 


XXII. 

JEHOIAKIM. 

And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah 
and Jerusalem, and turned his name to Jehoiakim. — II. Chronicles 
XXXVI : 4. 

So the royalty of Judah returned to its regular 
and legitimate channel ; for the brother whom Elia- 
kim succeeded was younger than he, and was, as we 
have seen on a recent occasion, a usurper, intruded 
upon the throne by a popular impulse. Eliakim was 
Josiah’s eldest son, and so, when Pharaoh Necho 
deposed Jehoahaz, and put Eliakim in his place, it 
was the triumph of right over might, according to 
the fixed and recognized constitution of the coun- 
try. Yet his elevation was accomplished by the 
intervention of a foreign power, and that power, in 
changing his name at the same time that it placed 
him on the throne that rightfully belonged to him, 
displayed its superiority, and marked him as its de- 
pendant and vassal, branding him as it were with 
a stamp of servitude, as more a viceroy of Egypt 
than an independent king. Whether his name 
should be Eliakim — God will establish — or its tanta- 
mount, Jehoiakim — Jehovah will establish — might be 
of small importance in itself ; but that there was one 
over him who could compel him to make the change 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAIL 


269 

was a thing of great significance, and showed but 
too plainly how low royalty had fallen in his person 
in Judah. They might call him king, but he evi- 
dently was little more than a satrap or vicegerent of 
the king of Egypt ; and he could not hear his name 
called without being reminded of this. No Hebrew 
father had given him that name, but an Egyptian 
prince, whose supremacy, in accepting it, he ac- 
knowledged, and he dared not question. His very 
name was thus a badge of vassalage, and showed 
unequivocally that the royalty accorded to him was 
a weakened and tarnished royalty. Israelitish in- 
dependence perished with King Josiah, on the field 
of Megiddo, by the fatal misstep of that worthy mon- 
arch ; as the error of a good man may often precipi- 
tate the punishment incurred by a series of bad ones. 
The kingdom became base and servile, owing its 
precarious life to the will of powerful neighbors. 

“ What seemed its head. 

The likeness of a kingly crown had on.” 

But it was but a seeming head, and it was sur- 
mounted by naught better than the likeness of a 
crown. Yet this humiliating dependence upon Egypt 
did not go far to protect Israel from the cupidity 
and hostility of Assyria, or rather of Babylon, into 
which Assyria had now melted. That Josiah had 
taken part against Egypt in the war that cost him 
his life did not purchase for the kingdom the pro- 
tection of Babylon, Through Jehoiakim’s thorough 
subserviency to Egyptian interests, Babylon saw in 


2/0 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


his cowed and tributary kingdom, little more than an 
outlying province of Egypt, affording a vulnerable 
point of attack to its more formidable adversary; 
and its sovereign became mainly anxious to get out 
of the way a shield, which, while thin and insuffi- 
cient, did still interpose an obstacle to some extent 
to the success of its designs on its enemy on the 
Nile. The troubles of Jehoiakim’s reign arose prin- 
cipally from the attacks of Babylon, which had now 
become in turn triumphant over Assyria, and the 
dominant power in the country on the Euphrates ; 
these attacks were incessant, and were more and 
more tending to that complete ruin of the Hebrew 
kingdom, in which a few years later they were des- 
tined to issue. God had withdrawn his protection 
from the thankless and unfaithful people. Hence- 
forth it was a doomed nation, to Be tossed to 
and fro in the struggles for the mastery of the two 
mighty powers between which it lay, and be bruised 
between the upper and *the lower millstone till it 
was ground to powder. 

The life of Jehoiakim is briefly summed up by the 
historian in the customary laconic statement that 
“ he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord 
his God.” What is more particular in him we learn 
chiefly from his connection with the prophet Jere- 
miah, with whose history his career was much and 
intimately interwoven. Of Jeremiah he was the 
persecutor, and yet in some degree the protector; 
he hated and yet feared him. His stern, undaunted 
ministry he reverenced and dreaded, while yet his 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


271 


solemn warnings stirred him not to repentance and 
reformation. The prophet’s reproofs and admoni- 
tions stirred him only to wrath and bitterness, and 
yet these feelings were chastened and restrained in 
a measure by a fearful and foreboding awe. The 
power of Egypt had been weakened by her defeat 
at Carchemish, so that the “ trust in the shadow of 
Egypt” which the prophet denounces, became a 
“shame” to the prostrate nation. She seems to 
have cared little for the tributary over which she 
had so insolently asserted her power in carrying off 
its chosen monarch, and substituting a ruler of her 
own appointment ; but left it to struggle unaided 
in its unequal conflict with the Babylonian con- 
queror. Or what is more probable. Pharaoh, smart- 
ing under the wounds Babylon had inflicted upon 
him, and stunned by his terrible defeat, had little 
heart to renew the strife for the ascendency over 
Judah ; but left the fallen and enfeebled kingdom 
to fall a prey to his adversary’s cupidity. It was 
amidst such gloomy scenes and forebodings, the 
dying agonies of the kingdom, as it were, that 
Jeremiah exercised his ministry, and that what he 
saw and foresaw communicated to his words that 
plaintive character which has given him the name of 
the mournful prophet. “ Oh ! that mine head were 
waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears,” he cries, 
“ that I might weep day and night for the slain of 
the daughter of my people.” Jehoiakim, the king 
of the expiring monarchy, instead of girding himself 
up to meet the awful emergency, or resorting to 


2/2 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


God for help in time of need, seems to have given 
himself up to a life of reckless pride, ostenta.tion, 
and voluptuousness, and was only aiming to lead 
the life of a luxurious eastern monarch, while his 
throne was, as it were, crumbling beneath him. 
Jeremiah, with that clear foresight of coming events 
which divine inspiration gave him, foretold the suc- 
cess of the invader, and counselled submission, 
though that was only to change one master for an- 
other, and take Nebuchadnezzar instead of Pharaoh. 
Still in it there might be temporary peace, and the 
hope of better days. But such counsels only laid 
him open to the charge of disaffection and sedition, 
led to his arrest and imprisonment, and brought 
him into danger of death. It was this king, Jehoi- 
akim, that in his impious defiance of God, and his 
messenger, cut the prophet’s roll in strips, and burnt 
it in the fire, when “ Jehudi read it in the ears of 
the king, and in the ears of all the princes that stood 
beside the king;” as though God’s threats would 
vanish in its ashes, and “ the Word of God, which 
liveth and abideth forever,” would depart with the 
shrivelling parchment on which it was inscribed. 
The futility of such a thought has been demon- 
strated oftentimes since. There is always a Baruch 
to revive perished truth and “ write again the same 
words.” Once, indeed, the sound advice of the 
prophet was taken, and “ the plague was stayed ” 
for a little time, by Jehoiakim’s submission and vow 
of fealty to Nebuchadnezzar. But Jehoiakim was 
faithless. His covenant with Nebuchadnezzar was 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


273 


soon broken. The people at this time were given 
up to idolatry. The temple was the scene of such 
abominations as Ezekiel saw in it in his vision on 
the banks of the river Chebar. “ Every form of 
creeping things ” was portrayed upon its venerable 
walls. “ There sat women weeping for Tammuz,” 
and there were “ men with their backs toward the 
temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east.'' 
But the infatuated king was busy constructing a 
splendid palace, and exacting from the impoverished 
people ruinous and oppressive taxes to sustain his 
luxury and magnificence ; “ building his house by in- 
iquity, and his chambers by wrong;” “closing him- 
self with cedar,” and painting his gorgeous apart- 
ments “ with vermilion ; ” living in oppression and 
luxury, and in reckless indifference to his approach- 
ing doom. But all this was only to provoke God, 
and dare the indignation of the resistless Nebuchad- 
nezzar, and so deepen and accelerate the deluge that 
was rolling toward him. A new invasion put an end 
to his wicked and inglorious reign. In the tumult 
and confusion of the conquest the unhappy prince 
disappears, after a reign of eleven years, at the early 
age of thirty. Doubtless he was slain, and fulfilled 
the whole of that disgraceful destiny which Jere- 
miah had years before denounced upon him. “Thus 
saith the Lord concerning Jehoiakim, the son of 
Josiah, king of Judah, They shall not lament for 
him, saying, Ah ! my brother ! or Ah ! sister. They 
shall not lament for him, saying. Ah ! lord ! or Ah ! 
his glory ! He shall be buried with the burial of an 


2/4 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jeru- 
salem.” Three thousand of the people were car- 
ried captive to Babylon, among whom were Daniel 
and his two companions, and it is probable, also, the 
prophet Ezekiel. A phantom of rule was left to 
Jehoiachin, or Coniah, Jehoiakim’s son, to be exer- 
cised, under Babylonish dictation, over the impover- 
ished and disheartened kingdom of his fathers ; and 
so the first act in the Babylonish captivity was com- 
pleted. Jeremiah’s life was given him for a prey, 
and he was left to wail and warn amidst the ruin of 
his country till the fate he foretold for it should be 
consummated ; and then in sad and weary servitor- 
ship weep its final downfall in his heart-broken 
book' of Lamentations. 

There stands before us in this miserable king an- 
other great moral picture, and it is not only the pic- 
ture of an individual but of a class. It is a class 
which St. James in his graphic way describes. One 
might almost think that Jehoiakim had sat for the 
portrait. But, alas ! there never are wanting extant 
specimens of it, so that it cannot be necessary to go 
back for an original to a king dead over five hundred 
years. “Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and 
been wanton ; ye have nourished your hearts as in 
a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed 
the just, and he doth, not resist you.” Men there 
are of a reckless, bold, self-indulgent temper, to 
whom the present is all, and who live to gratify 
themselves, seemingly careless at what cost ; in 
whom experience and the lessons of the past work 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


275 


no wisdom, and on whom the clearest warnings fall 
with no salutary effect. To narrow life into the now, 
and get from it all the pleasure it can furnish, seems 
to be their idea of living, and the end for which they 
live. Such a man may be the prince of good fel- 
lows among those who can contribute to his satis- 
faction ; but if they dare to throw the shadow of 
their opposition across his path, he is cruel, re- 
morseless, unrelenting; such a man was Henry 
VIII., if history has not belied him, though seem- 
ingly of stronger qualities than the Israelitish mon- 
arch, not so mean and cringing, but as unscrupulous ; 
or Charles II., as complete a voluptuary and trifler, 
but with more good nature, and a fund of wasted 
sense. Such a man the author of Wisdom makes to 
say, “ Come on, therefore, let us enjoy the good 
things that are present ; and let us speedily use the 
creatures like as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with 
costly wine and ointments; and let no flower of the 
spring pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with rose- 
buds before they be withered. Let none of us go 
without his part of our voluptuousness ; let us leave 
tokens of our joyfulness in every place ; for this is 
our portion, and our lot is this.” But along with 
this gay side of the man stands another that is grim 
and hideous. “ Let us oppress the poor righteous 
man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the 
ancient gray hairs of the aged.” “ He was made to 
reprove our thoughts.” “ Let us see if his words be 
true ; and let us prove what shall happen in the end 
of him.” Such a man was Nero, swallowed up in 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


276 

the grossest debaucheries, yet fiddling when Rome 
was burning, and burning Christians as torches to 
light up his gardens. 

And such a man was Jehoiakim, according to Jere- 
miah’s account of him. Warning was lost upon 
him. He lived in the present just for the enjoy- 
ment of the passing hour. He would not look at 
the future or provide for it, clear as were its portents 
of disaster. He disregarded God, and when men 
dared to tell him the truth they felt his wrath, and 
were oppressed and distressed as enemies of the 
State. His father had fallen in battle as the penalty 
of an unwise meddling. His brother, after a short 
usurpation, had been carried captive, and was lan- 
guishing in exile somewhere in Egypt. He himself 
held his throne only by Pharaoh’s sufferance ; and 
now that Pharaoh was unclosing his grasp through 
weakness, Nebuchadnezzar stood ready to pounce 
upon the deserted prey. If anything could make a 
man think, it might seem to be such a position of 
affairs. But Jehoiakim would not think. “ Eat, 
drink, and be merry,” was his motto ; and he count- 
ed him an enemy who dared to suggest any such dis- 
agreeable business as thinking. He is my enemy 
that is the enemy of my pleasure. And if some 
bold man shall presume to bring his book of solemn 
warning into my royal presence, I will cut it in pieces, 
and burn it in the fire, and it will be well for him 
that he is not with it to share its fate. Had he lis- 
tened to the prudent counsels of the prophet of God, 
and consented to hold his kingdom in subordination 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


277 


to the paramount authority of the king of Babylon, 
he might have retained his throne with such dimin- 
ished honors as in such a position it could still pos- 
sess, and transmitted it in peace to successive gener- 
ations of his descendants ; but pride and impatience 
of aught that would curtail his personal consequence, 
or lessen his means of personal gratification, led him 
to break his engagements, and brave the Avrath of 
his terrible antagonist ; and thus in his wretched end 
he stands to point a moral on the page of history, 
and become a testimony to the truth of Scripture 
that “pride goeth before destruction;” and that 
while “ the prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hid- 
eth himself,” “ the fool rageth and is confident,” and 
“ so passeth on ” with reckless disregard of conse- 
quences, “and is punished.” “Yielding pacifieth 
great offences,” and “ the wrath of a king is a mes- 
senger of death, but a wise man will pacify it.” “ A 
living dog is better than a dead lion,” and a vassal 
king far, far better than a carrion corpse. A too 
greedy snatching at or clinging to the whole of a 
good thing in a spirit of blind and unforecasting 
selfishness, especially if there be faithlessness and 
treachery in it, is apt to end in the forfeiture of 
all, when a prudent or politic moderation may, in 
relinquishing a part, save much, and retain the pos- 
sibility of ultimately regaining the Avhole. This 
illustrates the self-defeating character of an engross- 
ing selfishness, and the ruinous results of a spirit of 
self-indulgence that concentrates all its care on pres- 
ent gratification, and rushes headlong on the de- 


2/8 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


struction it will not stop to foresee, ‘‘ as the horse 
rusheth to the battle.” A life whose ruling spirit is 
self-indulgence becomes sensual, cruel, blind, and 
suicidal. 

But let us not confine our view to this brief life. 
The whole of this earthly existence may be taken as 
a short present, in which the great question before 
us is whether we will make self the main object of 
life, and, shutting out all serious concern for higher 
aims and mor-e enduring results, live while we live 
in the worldling’s sense, and resolutely trample down 
all that stands in the way of that form of earthly 
good which we have selected for ourselves, and meet 
on the threshold of eternity the repulse, “ Son, re- 
member that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good 
things ; ” or live while we live in the Christian’s sense, 
live for nobler ends, that subordinate self, and call 
for the exercise of self-denial, self-restraint, and self- 
control, to awake from the sleep of death to the 
transporting plaudit, “ Well done, good and faithful 
servant.” There is nothing truer than that a de- 
votion to immediate gratification is a false self-love 
that defeats itself in its success, and buys its plea- 
sures at too dear a price even in temporal effects ; 
and that the determined spirit that “ tramples down 
and casts behind the baits of pleasing ill,” though 
it involves sacrifice, and the rejection of attractive 
pleasures within reach, is a real self-love, and yields 
far richer, more abundant, and more durable fruits 
in the long run. Oh, my brethren, doubt not that 
religion is wisdom, is policy, that it has the “ promise 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


279 


of the life that now is.” But yet rise, I pray you, 
to a higher conception of your position, of your in- 
terests, of your true well-being. Shut up your views 
within this space of being, and care for nothing but 
to make the most of it. Shut out from your mind 
that awful retribution that soon will come in the 
shape of an enquiry into the use you have made of 
it. Let there be no entrance into your minds of the 
summons, Give an account of thy stewardship.” 
Grow unscrupulous and hard-hearted in your chosen 
pursuit, and treat all threats of a reckoning as a 
dream. If, startled into seriousness by some close 
pressure of troubles, you make a covenant with God 
to serve him, forget it as soon as the pressure is re- 
moved, and live as before, as Jehoiakim did — like 
him, too, resolutely shutting your eyes to the account 
to which you will soon be called for it. Let your 
heart grow lax with sensuality, vain with display, 
contracted with avarice, or empty with thoughtless- 
ness. Be willing to practise fraud, unkindness, and 
oppression, if they will advance your objects. You 
may think it all judicious self-love, making the most 
of life ; but it is the self-love of a fool. “ God is not 
mocked ; whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
also reap. He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the 
flesh reap corruption.” “ Men do not gather grapes 
of thorns, nor figs of thistles.” You may not, like 
Jehoiakim, be “buried with the burial of an ass.” 
“ The rich man died and was buried,” no doubt 
sumptuously, expensively, with a grand funeral. 
“ But in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment.” 


28 o 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


Be sure of this, my brethren, that, whether we will 
think of it or not, a day of reckoning is at hand ; 
and that no ignoring it, leaving it out of our cal- 
culations, and living simply for things temporal, 
whether in their grosser or more decent and harm- 
less forms, making no preparations for it, putting 
ourselves to no restraint for its sake, but going on, 
recklessly, blindly, with some vain, vague hope that 
it will be well with us “ at the last,” we know not 
how, we know not why, will prevent its coming, or 
shield us from its awful effects. There it is, sure as 
the Word of God, firm as his throne, and every breath 
we draw brings us nearer to its awful presence. My 
brethren, there is but one way for a wise being, and 
that is to live for eternity, and count all things that 
seem to be gain, but loss, in comparison of the good 
it offers; all seeming loss gain that brings us nearer 
to its glories. 


XXIII. 


CONIAH. 


Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he 
reigned in Jerusalem three months. — II. Kings xxiv : 8. 


When Jehoiakim, whose reign of reckless extrava- 
gance and tyranny ended in a death of violence “ and 
the burial of an ass,” and he was “ drawn and cast 
forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem,” the poor 
wreck of royalty that alone remained was his son 
Jehoiachin, who is elsewhere called Jeconiah, and 
Coniah, a youth of eighteen. He possessed it only 
for the short space of three months, and then was 
carried away to Babylon and passed the remainder 
of his life in captivity. Not much could be expect- 
ed of such a youth, who, though in name a king, 
had little of a king’s power ; and who, if the power 
had been his, lacked time to accomplish any kingly 
work. Yet, brief and insignificant as his reign was, 
it was long enough to determine the character of the 
man, and the quality of his conduct in his station, 
and thus fix a certain stamp on his reign. They were 
bad. For, in the words of the record, so frequently 
repeated in the later stages of Judah’s history that 
they seem like the oft-recurring refrain of a song, 
“ he did that which was evil in the sight of the 


282 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


Lord, according to that which his father had done.” 
It takes but a short time to show what a man is ; 
and if he proves himself evil, it is a mercy to him 
and to others if his opportunity of action is cut short ; 
since to him it could only be a ‘‘heaping up of wrath 
against the day of wrath,” and to others brought 
but an occasion of mischief and misery. The 
sweets of royalty, if indeed there were any sweets 
in such an impaired and dishonored royalty as 
Coniah’s, he tasted for three months only, and then 
went to increase the retinue of dethroned and expa- 
triated monarchs that served to swell the state of the 
mighty Nebuchadnezzar. The kingdom when he re- 
ceived it was already reduced to nearly the lowest 
stage of weakness and disgrace ; and the merely 
nominal sovereignty, which it served Nebuchadnez- 
zar’s purpose to still keep up in it, would be rather, 
to a high-minded and self-respecting man, a badge 
of humiliation and servitude, than a token of great- 
ness and honor. Still, to even shoivs of dignity the 
minds of men cling ; and we may well suppose that 
Coniah loved and took pride in such a ghost of roy- 
alty as had alone come down to him. Yet his posses- 
sion of even this was very short. At the end of three 
months the Babylonian monarch laid siege to Jeru- 
salem and took it. Perhaps Nebuchadnezzar was 
enraged at some show of independence in Coniah, 
or at his assumption of the throne without his ex- 
press permission. Or it may be that he acted on 
the mere wantonness of power or upon some view 
of policy. So at any rate it was that he carried 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


283 


Coniah to Babylon, where he was kept a close pris- 
oner for many years. The weakened kingdom that 
had descended to him was now still further depleted 
and impoverished. The king’s treasures and the 
treasures of the temple were seized. The nobles, 
warriors, and skilful workers of the nation were car- 
ried off. Few indeed besides the poor and weak 
were left behind. The miserable remnant was placed 
in the hand of his uncle Zedekiah, who was the last 
of Josiah’s sons, and in him the direct royal line of 
David came to an end. For years the poor dis- 
crowned monarch Coniah languished in confinement, 
till at last, after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, Evil- 
Merodach, his successor, took pity on the fallen 
prince, and for some unknown reason distinguished 
him above other captive kings, brought him out of 
prison, changed his prison garments, ‘‘ and made 
him sit at his own table,” so that at last a gleam of 
comfort and indulgence shone upon his last days. 

Of this unhappy prince it is that Jeremiah, in the 
midst of whose ministry his short reign occurred, 
speaks these solemn and eloquent words : “ As I live, 
saith the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim 
king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, 
yet would I pluck thee thence ; and I will give thee 
into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the 
hand of them whose face thou fearest, even into the 
hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into 
the hand of the ' Chaldeans. And I will cast thee 
out, and thy mother that bare thee, into another 
country, where ye were not born ; and there shall 


284 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


ye die. But to the land whereunto they desire 
to return, thither shall they not return. Is this 
man Coniah a despised broken idol ? is he a vessel 
wherein is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, 
he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they 
know not? O earth, earth, earth, hear the word 
of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, Write ye this 
man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his 
days : for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting 
upon the throne of David and ruling any more in 
Judah.” Although childlessness is here denounced 
upon Coniah as part of his heavy fate, his seed is, 
you see, spoken of in the words that almost immedi- 
ately precede, where it is said that his seed is cast out 
as well as himself; and, in another place, the 7tame of 
a son of his is given. The solution may probably 
be that some child that he had at the time of his 
capture — an infant necessarily, from ’his own age, 
since he was but eighteen — was either put to death, 
or, according to the barbarous practice of the age, 
rendered incapable of continuing the royal line ; so 
that, for the purpose of inheriting the royal honors, 
Coniah was without posterity. And no man of his 
seed sat upon the throne of David, or ruled in Judah. 
The royal stock, after the death of his uncle Zede- 
kiah extinct in the line of Solomon, fell back to the 
descendants of Nathan, another of David’s sons, 
“ from whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, the 
true king of Israel, who is God over all, blessed for- 
ever.” It is in this sense that Salathiel, of the line of 
Nathan, is called Coniah’s son ; not as such by blood. 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


285 


but as his successor in carrying on the right of suc- 
cession in the royal race. The word son is indeed 
used very loosely and with a large latitude of sense 
by the Hebrew writers. 

But whatever may have been the personal quali- 
ties of Coniah, and however small the claims to their 
respect and attachment his brief rule may have ac- 
quired, the nation could not see the line of their an- 
cient kings — remembrances of glories which though 
now faded and tarnished were still their pride — pass 
away in him, apparently into hopeless oblivion, 
without bitter grief and lamentation. The nation 
reeled under the blow; and, whatever he was, he 
attracted peculiar sympathy, in his fall, as the last 
of the lion cubs of the tribe of Judah, the last of the 
direct line of the house of David. Ezekiel in pas- 
sionate sorrow represents him as the topmost and 
tenderest shoot of the royal cedar tree, which though 
“ of low stature,” compared with the grand cedar 
whence it derived its life, had yet brought forth 
branches and shot forth sprigs ; ” but is seized and 
carried off by “ a great eagle with great wings and 
many feathers,” and left upon the mountains to 
wither “ in all the leaves of her spring.” So too is 
Coniah compared by the same prophet to a young 
lion’s whelp, that, when the old lion whom the beasts 
had before acknowledged as their master had been 
brought with chains into the land of Egypt, had 
“ become a young lion and learned to catch the prey ; 
but is taken in the pit, and put in ward and chains, 
and brought to the king of Babylon, that his voice 


286 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


should no more be heard upon the mountains of 
Israel.” Thereupon the nation, figuratively repre- 
sented as a bereaved mother, droops in the sad sense 
that now “ she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to 
rule.” This, says the mourning prophet, This is a 
lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.” The 
man had a value, independent of his personal attri- 
butes, as the representative of an interest and a time- 
honored and vital idea. Over the prostration of 
these the nation wept. Hope went with their de- 
parting king. The traditions and confidences of the 
people were defaced and obliterated. Nothing re- 
mained to them but vassalage and abject humilia- 
tion, unresisting and helpless subjection to the ty- 
ranny of the all-subduing Babylonian conqueror. 

Too little that is specific is told us of this unfor- 
tunate young king to form the ground of any par- 
ticular instruction to us. It is simply said of him 
that he did evil as his fathers had done evil. Doubt- 
less he upheld and practised the idolatry which had 
first obtained such firm foothold and establishment 
under the zealous support and patronage of his 
ancestors Ahaz and Manasseh. For their relation 
and disposition toward this great national evil seem 
more than anything else to have been the criterion 
of the character of monarchs with the authors of this 
sacred history. Coniah had been born and educated 
in idolatry, and during the little time that he pos- 
sessed the show of power, he did not discountenance 
or oppose it, but acquiesced in it and conformed 
to it. It was his misfortune to be the son of the 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


287 


proud, self-indulgent, reckless Jehoiakim. If he 
beget a son,” says Ezekiel, a contemporary prophet, 
“ that seeth all his father’s sins which he hath done, 
and considereth, and doeth not such like ; but hath 
executed my judgments, hath walked in my statutes: 
he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he 
shall surely live.” But in Coniah there was no 
strength of will or of moral principle. A bad father 
was to him not an admonition, but a precedent. 
Idolatry was in before him, who was a patron of 
idolatry, and he did not drive it out. Poor youth of 
eighteen ! he could not arrest it, and, trained as he 
was in it, it is not likely that he would if he could. 
How much we are the result of circumstances! 
And how happy for us it is that the Lord knows us, 
and can judge us fairly in the light of our circum- 
stances. By him actions are weighed. 

Some general reflections are all that the case be- 
fore us suggests. There is then an importance that 
rests simply in position, but it is not worth much. 
This was all Coniah had ; otherwise very insignifi- 
cant. 

Men have a factitious and relative value, as well as 
that which is intrinsic and personal. We may be in- 
significant in ourselves, have no element of great- 
ness in us, do no great acts, exert no extensive 
influence, have no inherent claim to importance in 
life or remembrance in death ; and yet certain out- 
ward facts in connection with our existence on earth 
may make us a name, may draw around us the 
attentions and interest of men, and create a lively 


288 


so VEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


feeling in regard to our weal or our woe ; we j;nay 
represent an interest which makes us precious, and 
throws around us a consequence altogether dispro- 
portionate to anything that we are in ourselves. 
Thousands sleep in nameless graves, and are for- 
gotten, their image utterly vanished out of the 
city, their very names forgotten, and never men- 
tioned under all the heavens, who had in them ma- 
terial for greatness ; but one who in himself is 
inferior to most of them, but whom some accident 
of birth or fortune, as men speak, has made conspic- 
uous ; in whose life the stability of some social ar- 
rangement or civil institution may depend ; with 
whom some hope or project will die ; in whom is 
bound up the preservation of a family, or the con- 
tinuance of an order of things on which the tran- 
quillity of a community depends ; but who, neverthe- 
less, in all that magnifies manhood is below the aver- 
age of the undistinguished mass, nay, even not much 
above idiocy, is regarded with far greater considera- 
tion, and makes a much larger figure in the picture 
of human life. Coniah personally was unimportant. 
He passed away from the field that was proper 
to him too soon to have done anything that was 
mighty. He w^as just merging into manhood. His 
reign lasted but three months. History ascribes to 
him no uncommon qualities. We have no particu- 
lars of any good that he did. We only know that 
what he did was bad. Intrinsically all we know of 
him is this : that a young man of eighteen, with pow- 
ers as yet imperfectly developed, but not promising 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


289 

any beneficial results, was removed from his sphere 
of action, before he had-in any way signalized him- 
self or done any memorable deeds, into an obscurity 
like death, to all practical intents, from which, to any 
purpose that we know of, he never emerged. That is 
certainly a very meagre and unmeaning record. But 
Coniah was a king. He sat upon a throne that was 
tottering upon its base, and whose very imperilled 
and assaulted condition made it conspicuous, inter- 
esting, and dear. Men’s eyes were fastened on him 
with anxiety to see how it would go with him, and 
this very solicitude made him worm up, and gather 
consequence in their eyes. He was the scion of a 
noble and illustrious race. The very being of that 
race centred in him, and rested upon him. Take 
him away and the race was virtually extinct, and the 
shadow of its sceptre, dear though but a shadow, 
vanished. He was the barrier against changes of 
which none could see the extent or effects. And so 
men stood and looked at him — standing on his slip- 
pery and unsteady eminence — with solemn interest, 
with trembling fear, and saw him in a halo which 
did not emanate from himself, but which gathered 
around him from his circumstances. So his name is 
in God’s book, and his fate is carefully recorded. A 
nation broke out into mourning over his downfall, 
inspired prophets spoke of him with deep concern, 
and his capture was a “lamentation, and to be for a 
lamentation.” And these adventitious things may 
often mislead not only others but the man himself. 
It is a great thing in common opinion to be a king, 

13 


290 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


even if he be weak or wicked. But let us under- 
stand the true value of this adventitious import- 
ance. Let us remember that all that is adventi- 
tious is also transitory, and that nothing is eternal 
that is not also intrinsic. All else is but the shell of 
the life, that falls off soon and leaves it simply itself. 
No treasures, no titles, no crowns, no outside ad- 
vantages of any kind go beyond the grave’s mouth. 
“The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but 
he that doeth the will of God abideth forever ; ” soon 
all that is factitious will desert us. Righteousness 
is “above durable riches,” durable honors, durable 
importance. Let us learn not to value ourselves 
upon what simply presses us up in a vain show, -but 
on what makes us internally and eternally noble and 
good. That is all God cares for in us now, all he 
will take account of in us when we stand before his 
face. Here we learn what a poor thing it is to be 
a king and not kingly, to be great externally and 
not internally, and learn to value and to seek inward 
greatness in the sight of the Lord. We must do 
this if our life is not to be, if not a curse, no better 
than a toy. 

Happiness is not the necessary consequence of 
high position. What an unhappy man was this 
king. Yet the contrary impression is so general 
and so deeply impressed upon men’s minds that it 
is not easily dislodged. Men are always looking at 
some shining points in society which they feel sure 
must be the chosen abodes of bliss, and think if they 
could but attain them they should reach the sum- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


291 

mit of earthly felicity. The idea has embodied it- 
self in the common saying, “ Happy as a king.” Far 
nearer to the truth is the sentiment which Shake- 
speare has put into the mouth of a king, 

“ Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” 

Oh ! these gilded pinnacles, how deceptive they are, 
how false a report they bear concerning those whose 
lot it is to occupy them. An examination of indi- 
vidual cases would soon dispel the delusion, and 
convince an honest enquirer that palaces are among 
the most undesirable of human habitations ; and 
that, as soon as men begin to rise above that 
average level where all reasonable wants meet with 
an easy supply, the enjoyment diminishes in in- 
verse proportion to the elevation. Wise indeed is 
the prayer of Agur, so far as relates to the dis- 
tinction that waits upon wealth, and which more 
and more, as the world grows older, is the pre- 
valent and effectual scale of social rivalry : “ Give 
me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food 
convenient for me ; ” furnish me with mediocrity, 
and make me contented with it. Let us remember 
that the source, from whose life we are endeavoring 
to draw some practical instruction in God’s house 
this morning, was a king. None was higher than he 
in all that nation ; nay, none so high. It may seem 
to a careless thinker that such a position as his shut 
out all causes of suffering, and brought in all sources 
of delight. And now, what was his life? He began 
to reign at the age of eighteen, an age at which the 


292 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


appetite for pleasure is as strong as it ever is, and 
the means of pleasure have the peculiar zest of 
freshness and novelty. Nothing as yet had palled 
by satiety or grown nauseous by excess. His father 
reigned eleven years. Since he was seven years old 
then he had occupied the position of a king’s son, 
the heir and expectant of a throne. He had lived 
in a palace, and had witnessed and partaken of all 
the magnificence and luxury of the dwelling of a 
monarch who, in a time of impoverishment and dis- 
tress, had built him a wide house “ that was ceil- 
ed with cedar, and painted with vermilion.” Yet 
what was this eleven years’ reign of Jehoiakim? 
What but a period of uncertainty, apprehension, 
and alarm. What was the throne at that time but 
a gaudy seat held by precarious sufferance, at the 
mercy of a foreign potentate, who could at any mo- 
ment crush and grind it beneath his feet ! Was the 
court a happy place ? And was the young prince, 
as his opening years forced him into a foresight of 
coming circumstances, happy in the prospect, happy 
in the outlook of that impoverished, distracted, and 
dishonored throne on which he was by and by to sit ? 
Bands of foreign mercenaries, set on by the king of 
Babylon, kept the kingdom in continual turmoil, 
and the disheartened people looked to their king for 
a deliverance which he could not effect. Soon his 
father’s reign went out in blood. He now was king 
in his father’s stead. Three months only he reigned, 
and then, for the crime of his succeeding to his an- 
cestral throne without Nebuchadnezzar’s permission. 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


293 


was dethroned, wore out many tedious years in a 
Babylonian prison, and when at last set free, lived a 
few years more as a pampered menial in a galling 
dependence upon charity, and died an exile. This 
was a king. It tells us what a king may be, or any 
great man in spite of his greatness. “ Seekest thou 
great things for thyself? seek them not.” “ Fear 
God, and keep his commandments.” “ Be content 
with such things as ye have.” “ Lay up to your- 
selves treasures in heaven.” And then when the 
Chief Shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a 
real crown,” a crown of righteousness that fadeth 
not away. 


XXIV. 


ZEDEKIAH. 


And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father’s brother 
king in hi^ stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah. — II. Kings 
XXIV : 17. 

The deposition of Jehoiachin or Coniah, and his 
removal from the country by the Babylonian king, 
left the throne of Judah empty. Coniah had been 
deposed in punishment, it might seem, of his bold- 
ness in presuming to take possession of the throne 
of his father Jehoiakim without the permission of 
Nebuchadnezzar. The haughty monarch had be- 
come his master, and the real sovereign of his do- 
minions. One son of the pious Josiah still remained, 
Mattaniah, then a young man of twenty-one. Him 
Nebuchadnezzar invested with the poor remnant of 
the royal dignity that was left, and with the title of 
king gave him so much of the kingly authority and 
honor as was consistent with his own paramount 
dominion. And with the throne he gave him a 
new appellation, changing his name from Mattaniah 
to Zedekiah, thus, as before in the case of his nephew 
Coniah, branding him as his vassal, as it were, in 
the act of clothing him with this mockery of royal 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


295 


state, and putting upon him a perpetual token of 
inferiority and dependence. The policy of this great 
conqueror, whose power was at this time extending 
itself with irresistible might and rapidity over all 
the eastern world, resembles that of the Romans 
at a later period, who, when they chose, and it 
seemed best to answer the purposes of their engross- 
ing pride, left to the petty kings that submitted to 
their sway the name and show of royalty, together 
with such limited power as they might tolerate, and 
at any time curtail or extinguish. Such a king was 
Herod in the days of our Lord. And along with 
the vassal name, there was imposed upon the young 
sovereign a vassal oath, in which he swore allegiance 
to Nebuchadnezzar, promised to pay him tribute, 
and solemnly engaged to exercise the functions of 
government in subordination to the authority of his 
Babylonian overlord, and to arrogate no independ- 
ence of his supreme control. Such was the posi- 
tion, the abject and pitiful position of Zedekiah, the 
last of the kings of Judah, the fallen inheritor of 
the once glorious monarchy of such splendid kings 
as David and Solomon and Jehoshaphat. 

Yet doubtless a crown, albeit so shorn of its true 
magnificence, was an attractive bauble to Zedekiah. 
Jerusalem and the temple still stood uninjured, and 
it was no small glory to be their master. The trib- 
ute exacted as the price of tranquillity was, it is 
probable, not very oppressive. Babylon was far 
away, and could not exercise a very close and con- 
stant scrutiny into his acts. The world is change- 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


296 

able, and sooner or later a juncture might arise 
when the yoke of the Gentile might be thrown off, 
and God’s people reassert their liberty. And truly, 
if Zedekiah had been wise and firm and constant, 
had been faithful to his solemn engagements, and 
understood how truly his strength was to sit still, 
he might have reigned in peace, exercised such 
authority as was left him without interference or 
restraint, and transmitted his dignity and his realm 
unhurt to successive generations of his posterity. 
There might, under such judicious conduct, have 
been a lengthening of tranquillity to him and his 
people. But the doom had gone forth ; the end 
was at hand, and the folly of Zedekiah secured and 
precipitated the close. He was weak and restless 
and aspiring and untrue. He could not acquiesce 
in a condition which he felt to be humiliating. 
The yoke was galling, and he longed to throw it off. 
He would be a king in reality, and not in such a 
marred and restricted sense. He soon began to in- 
trigue with neighboring peoples for concerted action 
in resistance of Babylonish tyranny, and thus ren- 
der Jerusalem a nucleus of disaffection against the 
government of Nebuchadnezzar. Covert insubor- 
dination after a time ripened into open rebellion. 
His vows of allegiance were forgotten or disre- 
garded, and he stood forth in avowed opposition to 
the gigantic power on whose sufferance alone the 
shadow of dominion that was left him hung for its 
preservation. During this period, and on to the 
disastrous issue of the unequal contest, the prophet 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


297 


Jeremiah was the voice of God to the nation and its 
king ; but his predictions and warnings served only 
to exasperate the feelings of the people against him- 
self, and render him the mark of their distrust and 
hatred. His predictions were accounted disloyalty, 
his warnings regarded as indicating a want of patri- 
otism, and a slavish subserviency to alien interest ; 
he was scouted and set at nought, committed to a 
loathsome prison, and only saved from death by the 
timely interposition of the Ethiopian Ebed-melech. 
The king himself evidently entertained more hu- 
mane feelings toward the intrepid messenger of God, 
and in various ways interposed to lighten the pres- 
sure of the public indignation. But Zedekiah was 
a weak, irresolute man, the tool of his nobles, and 
quite, unable to stem the impulse of popular feeling. 
He himself said to Jeremiah, “Against them,” that 
is the princes, “ it is not the king that can do any- 
thing.” Poor royal puppet ! at once the slave of a for- 
eign power, and the sport of his own turbulent spirits. 

The rebellious movement of the faithless and im- 
prudent vassal was not long unknown at the court 
of the Babylonish monarch, and the wrath that was 
to punish the puny efforts of a presumptuous servant 
was not slow to meditate condign recompense for 
the flagrant breach of faith and the daring insolence 
combined in the offence. Nebuchadnezzar being 
made aware of Zedekiah’s defection, either by the 
non-payment of the stipulated tribute or by some 
other means, sent an army to ravage Judea. The 
infatuated king in his consternation resorted to the 

13* 


so VEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


298 

king of Egypt for help. An Egyptian alliance had 
been the ruin of his excellent father Josiah, who, in 
punishment for his unwise meddling in a quarrel not 
his own, had fallen on the bloody field of Megiddo, 
and left his weakened and distracted kingdom a prey 
to its haughty neighbors. Egypt had yet scarcely 
recovered from the effects of that disastrous day, 
and was poorly fitted to cope with its powerful 
rival. In vain had the prophet said, “ Woe to those 
who go down to Egypt for help,” and foretold that 
the trust in the “ shadow of Egypt ” should be their 
shame. In vain did Jeremiah remonstrate. “Why 
gaddest thou about so much to change thy way ? 
Thou shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast 
ashamed of Assyria.” Even then his brother Jehoa- 
haz, if still living, was an exile in Egypt, if not 
languishing in an Egyptian prison. The frightened 
king, aghast at the consequences of his own audacity 
in defying the might of Babylon, could see no bet- 
ter way, however, than that which had already re- 
duced his country to the verge of destruction : the 
wretched policy of playing off one of the great pow- 
ers — between which Judah was ground as between the 
upper and the nether millstone — against the other, 
as the balance of strength shifted backward and for- 
ward, from side to side. That was worldly wisdom. 
That was political sagacity. That was governmental 
cunning. Alas ! faith was gone. God had ceased 
to be a factor in the king’s calculations ; and he 
could scarcely be appealed to to become the vindi- 
cator of violated oaths. Egypt could only “ hope 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


299 


in vain and to no purpose.” The Babylonian army 
came, headed by its magnificent monarch in person, 
to chastise the insolence of the presumptuous vassal. 
The land was laid waste before it. Soon Jerusalem 
was besieged, and, after enduring the horrors of fam- 
ine and pestilence in their direst and most loath- 
some forms, at the end of sixteen months was forced 
to surrender. The city was broken down, the tem- 
ple was burned with fire, and the sacred vessels were 
carried to Babylon, to add splendor to the impious 
revelry of Belshazzar a few years after. The king 
himself in the confusion of the sack made his escape, 
but was soon overtaken and captured in the plains 
of Jericho. Nebuchadnezzar, having thus wreaked 
his vengeance on his offending tributary, had re- 
tired to.Riblah, on the northern frontier of Pales- 
tine. Thither the captive king was brought, and 
there, in the dismal fate that was appointed to him, 
fulfilled the oracles both of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, 
though seemingly contradictory and incompatible, 
that he should speak to the king of Babylon “ mouth 
to mouth,” and his eyes should behold his eyes, 
and that he should be brought to Babylon, yet not 
see it, though he should die there. For after being 
brought before the victor, and beholding him, and 
seeing his children slain, he was deprived of sight, 
and led off to the royal city, there to languish and 
die in a hopeless and cheerless captivity. The ca- 
tastrophe had come. The consummation of the 
woe that had been gathering through many gen- 
erations had arrived. The ripened fruit of the evil 


300 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


seed that had been sown centuries before by the 
good Jehoshaphat in mistaken views of expediency 
and conciliation fell from the tree. The cataract 
gave his final plunge to a stream that, beginning 
in a peaceful rivulet, had broadened, and deepened, 
and strengthened, retarded only a little for a time 
by the checks given it by the reforming zeal of 
Hezekiah and Josiah, till it poured itself forth at 
last in one downward leap into an abyss of desola- 
tion and ruin. Hear the testimony of God’s Word: 
“ Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he 
began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jeru- 
salem. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord 
his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah 
the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord. 
And he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, 
who had made him swear by God : but he stiffened 
his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto 
the Lord God of Israel. Moreover all the chief of 
the priests, and the people, transgressed very much 
after all the abominations of the heathen ; and pol- 
luted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed 
in Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their fathers 
sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, 
and sending ; because he had compassion on his peo- 
ple, and on his dwelling-place: but they mocked the 
messengers of God, and despised his words, and mis- 
used his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose 
against his people, till there was no remedy. There- 
fore he brought upon them the king of the Chal- 
dees, who slew their young men with the sword in 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


301 


the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion 
upon young man or old man, or him that stooped 
for age : he gave them all into his hand. And all 
the vessels of the house of God, great and small, 
and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the 
treasures of the king, and of his princes ; all these 
he brought to Babylon. And they burned the house 
of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and 
burned all the palaces thereof with fire, and de- 
stroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them 
that had escaped from the sword carried he away to 
Babylon ; where they were servants to him and his 
sons.” 

Then rose from among the fragments of the city 
the plaintive wail of Jeremiah in the Book of his 
Lamentations : “ How doth the city sit solitary that 
was full of people ! how is she become as a widow ! 
she that was great among the nations, and princess 
among the provinces, how is she become tributary ! ” 
“ Behold, O Lord ; for I am in distress ; my bowels 
are troubled ; mine heart is turned within me ; for I 
have grievously rebelled ; abroad the sword bereav- 
eth, at home there is as death.” 

We see here an illustration of God’s law of na- 
tional retribution, his way of providential dealing 
with nations and communities. Zedekiah was far 
from being the most flagitious of the evil kings of 
Judah. Indeed, though not a high-principled man, 
he seems to have been rather weak than wicked, 
and “ did evil in the sight of the Lord” chiefly in 
maintaining the idolatry which he found established. 


302 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH, 


and in the exhibition of that mixture of pride and 
irresolution which is common to feeble characters 
when raised to a position of difficulty and responsi- 
bility in a critical juncture of affairs, and which leads 
them into vacillation and faithlessness. He was 
not equal to his place, nor to its emergencies, nor to 
his own ambitious views and aims. Yet upon him 
fell the accumulated woes of long ages of misrule. 
The heaped-up guilt of many generations of his pre- 
decessors fell upon him, and upon his people ; they 
were in a sense included in him and represented by 
him, and partook the same degeneracy and corrup- 
tion. Nor is this caprice, but the working of a 
divine law. A nation, a community, any organized 
society of men has a corporate life and personality, 
and in consequence has also a corporate charac- 
ter and accountability which is quite independent 
of the individual liability of its members taken 
singly ; and its character is good or bad according 
as it is or is not true to the end contemplated in its 
existence, provided that be innocent or salutary in 
itself, and to its conformity to the law under which 
it is established. And its good or evil is accumu- 
lated and growing as time wears on according to 
the number of its good or evil actions, and the mea- 
sure of its faithfulness to its trust or abuse of it. 
Hence it is liable to chastisements inflicted to recall 
it to its duty ; and when it becomes hopelessly cor- 
rupt, to be swept away and destroyed. And as its 
sphere is time, so are its recompenses temporal. 
Its probation, and every such body is on probation, 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


303 


reaches not into that eternity where it is resolved 
into its component parts, and every one of its indi- 
vidual members in every period of its history singly 
must give account of himself unto God at that bar 
of eternal judgment which is to fix his state forever. 
Its doom comes when its wickedness has ripened it 
for ruin. Thus God waited long before his promise 
to give the land of Canaan to the seed of Abraham 
was fulfilled, because the “ iniquity of the Amorites,” 
gross and bold as it was, “was not yet full.” And 
our Saviour tells the Jews of his time “that they 
were filling up the measure of their fathers,” and 
that upon that generation would come all the right- 
eous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of 
righteous Abel. Alas for Zedekiah ! it was his lot to 
come into power at the time when Judah’s wicked- 
ness had attained its fulness, and the recoil to evil 
after the brief reform of Josiah had rendered, the 
nation too loathsome to be borne, so that “ wrath 
came upon them to the uttermost.” But for himself 
he gave account unto God only for his personal sin. 
Every nation, and our own, is undergoing the same 
probation, and we, by our individual good or evil 
doing in our day, are contributing to the sum of that 
virtue or guilt which shall be a lengthening of its 
tranquillity or a hastening of its doom. 

Again, we see exemplified here the sacredness of 
solemn engagements, and the guilt and danger of in- 
fringing them. It is a special count in the indict- 
ment of Zedekiah that “he rebelled against Neb- 
uchadnezzar,” who had made him “ swear by God.” 


304 


SOVEREIGN'S OF JUDAH. 


And yet how much might be said in palliation, if not 
defence of his breach of faith. No allegiance was, 
on grounds of natural equity, due to Nebuchadnez- 
zar, and he had no original right to demand or ex- 
act it. It was yielded under compulsion, and was a 
mere enforced concession of weakness to overmas- 
tering power. The moral obligation of such an oath 
it may be thought must always have been weak — the 
mere resort of necessity, the device of the time — and 
was always covertly underlaid by the condition that 
its force should only continue till the exigency should 
terminate. So Zedekiah may have reasoned. So 
nations and their rulers are apt to reason. And un- 
der such reasoning treaties and covenants become, 
like the bonds of Samson, “ threads of tow touched 
by the fire,” when strength and opportunity return. 
Such are man’s thoughts, but such are not God’s 
thoughts. With him Zedekiah’s oath, under what- 
ever circumstances made, was sacred, and he could 
not be absolved from guilt in disregarding it on any 
plea of expediency or utility. Nay; the slighting 
of it was the drop that made the cup of the nation’s 
guilt run over. The good man of Scripture is the 
man that “ sweareth unto his neighbor and disap- 
pointeth him not, though it were to his own hin- 
drance.” We live in an age when the sanctity of 
oaths, and the obligation of all promises and en- 
gagements are fearfully relaxed ; when public swear- 
ing for official purposes has come to be little more 
than a legal form ; when the marriage vow is light- 
ly regarded and dissolved on slight pretexts ; and 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


305 


truth between man and man is set at nought with 
little ceremony or compunction. Is it a foretoken- 
ing of coming doom in a nation precociously old, 
and it may be feared precociously corrupt? Oh, 
if God be angry with us, small good will the rapid 
growth of wealth and knowledge and power ac- 
complish for us ; little way will it go to shield us 
from His ruinous displeasure. Let us rather imi- 
tate the fidelity of Joshua, who, though misled by 
false disguises into a covenant with the heathen 
Gibeonites, held it sacred and inviolable. Let our 
contracts with all peoples of the earth, and not 
the least with the poor, dependent race that are 
vanishing before our advancing steps, be sacredly 
kept. And in every relation of life, by our solemn 
respect for engagements and obligations, let us be 
examples of fidelity and steadfastness. We shall 
so save ourselves, and help to save our country. 

Finally, let us see the peculiar advantages and 
perils that pertain to us as constituting a portion of 
the Church of God. That was Israel’s special pecu- 
liarity among the nations of the world — they were 
the Church of God. No other people equalled them 
in this particular. In this respect they dwelt alone, 
and were not reckoned among the nations. “God 
had not dealt so with any nation, neither had the 
heathen knowledge of his laws.” And because this 
was so, their guilt was greater, and their punish- 
ment heavier. “ You only have I known among all 
the nations of the earth, therefore 'will I punish you 
for your iniquities.” “ Under the whole heaven 


3o6 sovereigns of judah. 

hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusa- 
lem.” No other people could incur such guilt ; no 
other people could deserve such punishment. We 
pride ourselves upon our possession of greater pri- 
vileges than theirs ; but let us remember that this 
possession is a perilous heritage. Yet who of us 
would prefer darkness or an inferior measure of Irght 
on account of the peril? None; and if we would, 
we would not have our choice. “ That which cometh 
into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say. We 
will be as the heathen.” Here our lot is cast, and 
its responsibilities, its privileges, and its dangers are 
ours inalienably. By them we must live, and by 
them we must die, and by them we must stand or 
■fall at the bar of God. And oh if light and grace, 
if God’s Word and House and sacraments, and all 
the lengthened opportunity of a life passed in a 
Christian land and in the bosom of the Catholic 
Church be lost upon us, and we are still wicked and 
impenitent and disobedient, what doom awaits us ? 
“ It shall be better for the men of Sodom in the 
day of judgment than for you.” From the pinnacle 
of advantage we must sink to the lowest pit of de- 
spair. Beware, beware! We little think what we 
are doing while, in these pleasant and favored places 
of our sojourning, we are living so carelessly, so 
thoughtlessly, as though our salvation must be al- 
most a thing of course, and we were not on that 
very account liable to an awful forfeiture and an ag- 
gravated condemnation. “ Mad upon our idols,” 
following after “ the world, the flesh, and the devil,” 


SOVEREIGNS OF JUDAH. 


nI’ 

307 

with gods as false and corrupt as Israel’s Moloch and 
Ashtarothand Baal, making by this idolatry our very 
show of worship “ a vain oblation,” and by our unsanc- 
tified and worldly lives turning this very holy place 
into “ a house of merchandise ” or “ a den of thieves.” 
God help us to understand and realize more per- 
fectly the position we occupy, that we may escape 
the punishment of “men that break covenant,” and 
stand before the Son of Man as in deed and in truth 
that which our baptism has made us, “ members of 
Christ, children of God, and heirs of the kingdom 
of heaven ; ” and, having made our “ calling and 
election sure” by a life of faithfulness to our Chris- 
tian obligations, find the reward of our faith in the 
salvation of our souls. 


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